Bura Brief's Wretched Idea for Romance and Misunderstanding
by starboygoku
Summary: Bura has a secret, and it's NOT the secret she thinks she has. It couldn't possibly disturb her second year of college any more than being in love with her best friend's boyfriend though, right? Right? Please say yes.
1. They Were On a Break!

**South Island, present day  
**  
_I wanna meet tomorrow._  
_Yesterday made me a fool today._

"Well, one of us is going to have to change."

Bura agreed. They were inside her brother's beach house and both dressed in red bikinis. She had just rounded the corner while rubbing sunscreen behind and over her ears while babbling about this particular brand's philanthropic agenda when she saw Pan's outfit for the first time.

"Honestly, how dare you," Bura said, hands cupped over her ears.

Pan shrugged and adjusted the thin strap of her top. "This is the only swimsuit I brought," she said.

That was believable enough. They were only staying for one weekend and it was essentially guaranteed that Pan was counting on Bura overpacking, as was her custom whenever the two traveled anywhere together. Bura hated it. Yes, there were dozens of swimsuits upstairs laid out on her bed in their room, but they were all for her own personal use. They were her options, a careful curation of typical bikinis and sporty neoprene tops and bottoms to suit any mood. None of them were for Pan.

"So are you changing or what?"

"You're unbelievable," Bura hissed, aggressively resuming rubbing in her sunscreen and thundering back upstairs to slip into something else.

Anger clouded her vision such that none of the other suits on the bed felt appealing anymore, but a wrathful eenie-meenie-miney-mo saw her into a black monokini and back downstairs where Pan was no longer alone. In the crisis packed minutes she spent choosing a new outfit the rest of the weekend's revelers had arrived.

Bura's foul mood evaporated like steam off a bun and a wide smile split her face at the sight of Trunks, Goten, and Marron—three of her favorite people she so rarely got to see. Of course Uub was there too, but Bura carefully avoided making direct contact with him by squishing Marron in a loud, shrieky hug.

"Please tell me your bathing suit isn't red, too?" Bura whispered quickly in Marron's ear.

Marron raised one thin eyebrow. "It's blue. Why?"

"No particular reason," Bura said darkly, cutting her eyes at Pan then quickly averting them again when Uub kissed her blushing cheek.

If Marron saw she didn't let it show. "Were you heading down to the beach already?" she asked, changing the topic entirely.

Bura nodded, "Pan and I got here last night so we couldn't wait any longer. We left as soon as I got out of class."

A keen shine sparked up Marron's eyes and her grip on Bura's arms got significantly tighter at the mention of school and all at once, Bura found herself being dragged back upstairs yet again.

"Come with me while I get changed!" Marron gushed, giving absolutely no choice to do otherwise. "Tell me all about your classes. Tell me. Are you making pieces this semester? What kind of color story are you thinking? What fabrics? What sort of textures?"

"Mostly yellows and golds…" Bura answered. "Lots of beadwork."

"Details! Motifs!"

"Pampas grass?"

Marron froze on the landing, weekender tote slinging about with momentum. "So you haven't _really_ thought about it."

Bura wished for the tiniest moment that she had hugged her brother instead. Marron was a graduate of the same fashion program at South Metro University where Bura was a current student, though she had of course graduated several years before Bura was ever admitted. That didn't do anything to quell the older woman's vested interest in Bura's matriculation. If anything the savage intensity of Marron's inquiry was only amplified by the fact that this particular trip—an annual beach weekend during the last warm holiday weekend of the year—was a relic of her own college years with Trunks and Goten. Last year was Bura's first year to score an invite during her first year at university; Marron lost her mind back then, too.

"I've thought about it plenty," Bura defended when they got to Marron and Goten's room. Marron dug through her luggage for her swimwear and scoffed. "Well I did! There's nothing wrong with pampas grass."

"It's boring," Marron countered. "You brought sunscreen, right?"

"Three types. Anyway—"

"Good girl," Marron crooned. "By the way, you're not still lusting over Uub, are you?"

Bura's jaw dropped. "No?"

"Okay, well maybe look at him and act like a functional human being if you want to keep that act up," Marron said, shimmying a bandeau into place.

Bura pouted. "But you're the only one who knows," she said quietly.

Marron stopped adjusting her top, titties uneven, and gently grasped Bura's face in her hands. "Bura," she said. "I love you. You are the little sister I never, ever wanted. But everybody, and I mean everybody, knows."

Bura blinked before terror could flicker in her eyes. "Are you trying to break me out right now?"

"Someone's gotta help you be as ugly as the rest of us," Marron teased, releasing Bura's face and finishing aligning her boobs. "Do you think this one is bigger?"

"Maybe?" Bura shrugged. "Don't most people have slightly different boobs?"

"Those of us that have them, yes."

"Oh come on," Bura groaned. "They aren't that small!"

Except, they were in this crowd. Pan and Marron both were several cup sizes larger than she was, and she was actually pretty sure that Goten's pecs would fill a larger bra than she could. It was just cruel irony that her mother named her Bura when she didn't even need one.

"Well, it ain't getting any better," Marron told herself in the mirror. "Let's go, Bambi."

The entire entourage rolled out the moment she and Marron came back downstairs and Bura walked with Trunks down to the beach. He asked her about school, too, but in a much calmer, academic way than Marron. Trunks didn't get away from work all that often and when he did he didn't usually spend his time catching up with her, his baby sister. When they did see each other like this he administered the usual polling questions: What are your grades like this semester? Did you get all the professors I picked for you? Are you making plenty of friends? Is the apartment well-managed? Do you need a maid so you can focus on studying? Are you dating anyone?

She answered his questions dutifully and almost honestly, knowing full well that anything she said to Trunks would end up parroted back to their mother and ultimately, their father. Bura had learned at an early age that it was easiest to restrict certain information from her parents, particularly when the intel was social in nature. No one could interfere with something they didn't know about and Bura was a person who valued her secrets. So many of life's intricacies were much easier to endure alone; no one needed to know about any fleeting foolishness she chose to participate in—and Marron was proof of that. Telling Marron about her infatuation with Uub was a mistake, but at the time she only wanted to vent about the fact that the first guy she had ever really been interested in was already dating her best friend. It was the only secret she ever had that felt too heavy to carry on her own. Of course now, the notion that everybody knew it as Marron claimed was completely unbearable.

"Where's Mai?" Bura asked suddenly.

It was a wicked change in subject and Trunks's face squished up as he rapidly began to explain that he and his on-off-on-off (?) girlfriend were _on a break_. Bura laughed and knew she won. Whenever Trunks got too personal the easiest, most guaranteed way to shut him up was to turn the situation around and ask him something uncomfortable for a change. His love life usually did the trick.

After asking him about his girlfriend, Trunks minded his own business the rest of the trek down to the water. South Island wasn't a very large place but the population was small and most places outside of the touristy beach on the north shore felt untouched and secluded. Their beach below the house was like that, and Bura was looking forward to laying out and later looking for sea glass. The others would undoubtedly start drinking now on the beach if the massive ice chest Goten was carrying on his shoulder meant anything, but Bura wouldn't. That chest was definitely full of beer and Bura would rather wait until Marron started making cocktails before dinner. She only wanted to lay out on her giant mandala towel and tan safely beneath her SPF 40. The volleyball game rustled up by the others, however, disturbed that.

"C'mon, Bura! Play with us!" Pan called from the other side of the net they put up. "It'll be odd numbers if you don't."

"No thanks," Bura said, rolling over to sun her back. She really didn't care.

"It's hopeless," Trunks said. "She's laying down. She won't move now."

And he was right, but hey.

"Then who's going to sit out?" Goten asked. He sounded a little nervous they were going to bench him and quickly added some trash talk. "Or are we just going to play all of you versus me to make it even?"

There was a laugh that Bura recognized all too well. Warm and deep and just a bit giggly, a laugh she felt she could single out in a crowd.

"I'll sit out this one," they said. And to her horror, Uub sat down beside her to do just that.

For a moment she tried not to breathe while he rummaged through the cooler and popped open a beer, then sighed. _Act like a functional human being_, she thought as Marron's earlier advice drifted back through her brain. She could do that. It wasn't like she didn't see Uub regularly, anyway. He was at the apartment she shared with Pan in South Metro at least once a week, usually more, but when he visited Bura always made up excuses to be out of the house unless Uub and Pan were the ones going out somewhere. It was perfectly functional. Unfortunately, there were no dance team meetings to accidentally schedule for the entire weekend and considering the size of South Island, no probable escape.

"So how's dance going?" Uub asked lightly. He was just so damn friendly. Why did he have to be nice on top of being handsome?

Bura turned her head so that he fell into view, catching him pouring beer into his upturned mouth and squinting at the ongoing volleyball game occurring several yards to their right. When he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand Bura blushed and sat up quickly, reaching for her sunglasses and the tiniest bit of anonymity.

"Dance is fine," she said, adjusting the big plastic frames of her sunglasses. They were farther up the bridge of her nose than they really needed to be. "We had a really good clinic last month with a choreographer from Satan City."

Uub glanced at her and smiled. "Hopefully they won't keep you so busy," he said. "You're always running away to practice."

"Am I?" Bura said, hoping she sounded surprised.

"Every time I walk through the door," he said, taking another drink. "I walk in, you run out."

What an interesting coincidence! Bura thought, but she didn't respond because she wasn't sure how to not say something even more incriminating than what she suspected, vaguely, he was insinuating. Instead she leaned back on her palms and tried to focus anywhere but on Uub, which was difficult since he kept doing eye-catching things like pumping his fist so that his shoulders rippled while cheering for Pan and Goten's team, or tipping back his beer so that his adam's apple bobbed.

"You should really relax more," Uub suggested, opening a second beer. "At least for this weekend. It's a vacation."

"I'm relaxed," she countered quickly, although as she said it, she was very aware of how tense every muscle in her body felt sitting beside him. Uub laughed.

"Good," he said, drinking. "Stress doesn't suit you."

"Does it suit anyone?"

"You got me there," he admitted, burying his second beer partially in the sand so it wouldn't spill. The game had ended in a Son loss, 10-8, and Pan was yelling that they needed to rearrange the teams before playing again while Marron and Trunks high-fived.

"Looks like I've gotta play the next one," Uub said, standing up and brushing sand off his legs. "Try not to miss me," he joked.

Of course, Bura didn't. And she wouldn't have, not even if Marron hadn't sat out next and started anew criticizing her couture projects.

There was nothing wrong with pampas grass!


	2. You Gotta Be Quicker Than That

After dinner, Marron made drinks, which was a treat since she made excellent cocktails with the same certainty that the sun rose in the East. There was no real method to her madness, and her pours were always just a little bit too long to be fully innocent of what she was doing, but the end result always suited Bura's tastes. How someone could fit so much liquor into a drink that for all intents and purposes tasted like a kid's juice pouch was, frankly, amazing.

"This is sugar and nothing else," Trunks complained, handing Marron back his drink.

Marron narrowed her eyes. "Are you really insulting me right now?"

"No, I'm saying that this is a sugar bomb."

Bura and Goten, seated on the sofa in the living room and watching this exchange over the kitchen island where Marron had set up her bar, drank their sugar bombs from candy-striped paper straws with eager anticipation. They knew Marron would emerge from the scuffle victorious because she always did, but it was so much fun to watch them. Marron took back the drink and then, making direct eye contact with Trunks, poured half of it out into the sink and topped it off with the strongest herbal liqueur she had on hand. The wafting scent of spices caught in Bura's nose stingingly astringent and she pinched her nostrils shut.

"Oh my god," she said. "She's gonna kill him."

Goten smiled widely, clinking drinks with Bura. "That's my wife!"

Trunks stared at the drink in front of them, then at Marron, and set his jaw.

"Drink it," Marron said evenly. _Or else._

He drank it and to his credit he didn't wince, although Bura did see his nostrils flare wildly while digging in his heels and chugging it. When he slammed the glass back on the counter Marron calmly filled it again with the green liqueur and Bura nearly gagged just thinking about drinking it. Trunks frowned.

"I see how it is," he said, a faint red flush already starting to rise in his cheeks. "You're serious right now?"

Marron smiled sweetly. "Almost," she said, dropping a single ice cube in with tongs and garnishing it with the tiniest sprig of mint Bura had ever seen in her life. "There. All done."

"You're too kind," Trunks said darkly. "It's exactly what I wanted."

Marron hummed happily about it to herself and Bura wondered for a moment how Goten was still alive after all these years.

"What about you, Uub?" Marron called out next. "What do you want?"

Bura turned around where Uub and Pan were occupying the same armchair opposite the sofa to see Uub holding onto his IPA a little tighter. "I'm all good, thank you," he said, eyes flickering momentarily in Trunks's direction.

Marron legitimately cackled. "How about you, Pan?"

"Oh you know what I like," Pan said easily, but she still got up off of Uub's lap to go oversee the construction of her drink.

Bura sank into the corner of her sofa and sighed. She was a little bit pink from their morning on the beach despite her best efforts and timely reapplication of her sunscreen. She would definitely have to be indoors the following day in the hours before and after high noon if she didn't want to peel. She had packed for this of course, though; there were a number of chiffon and silk cover ups and dresses upstairs that covered her shoulders and arms for her to wear tomorrow along with a big floppy hat.

"Should we play a game?" Marron asked the room when she and Pan finished up at the bar. Marron scooted in between Bura and Goten while Pan settled into the sofa opposite of theirs, presumably to show off her drinkable drink to Trunks, who was still darkly pouting.

"A game?" Bura said suspiciously. Games with this group were always a bit much; volleyball earlier that day had definitely ended with Trunks spiking the ball ten miles out to sea.

Marron grinned and tapped her nose. "I brought the jenga set."

The room suddenly filled with noise, either exclamations of joy or groans of deep emotional pain. The jenga set in question was a relic of very bad ideas from days gone by. The little blocks were all inscribed with terrible directions like 'thumb master' or 'Goten cleans up' among other more nefarious things like 'santa' and 'clothes swap.' There were a lot of horrible options and only two blocks that let you skip a turn, and generally speaking any time the game was played everyone was drunk and someone was very upset by the end. It took less than five minutes to set up.

"Can I get another drink?" Trunks asked, schlepping slowly towards the bar instead of circling up in the living room like everyone else.

"NO!" Marron snapped, but he grabbed a beer anyway and winked at Bura when he sat down.

Bura rolled her eyes. "Who's going first?"

"You are," Pan said. "Youngest goes first."

"I wanted to go first," Goten frowned.

Marron scoffed, "You wish, I'm going first because I brought the game."

While they argued, Uub reached out and pulled out a block from the middle of the tower without waiting for permission and turned it over in his hand. "Home run," he announced, already standing up and beginning to walk around the room counterclockwise.

Marron pouted, "That's cheating, Uub."

"You gotta be quicker than that," Uub said, drinking once for everyone he passed on his lap around the room; once for Bura, immediately to his right, then for Marron and rounding the sofa for Goten, then Trunks, and finally for Pan to the left of his armchair before sitting back down in his seat.

Pan drew next, quickly before Marron could complain again. "Happy couple," she said, looking up for confirmation.

"That's five drinks each," Goten said, pointing at Pan and Uub.

The game continued around the circle. When it was Bura's turn she pulled the Casanova block and had to kiss Marron, and on her second turn she received a penalty where she had to drink with her pinky out the rest of the night on account of not having a mustache. When Uub began the third round, his block reversed the turn order and Bura had to pull again immediately.

"Sorry," he said, looking quickly between Bura and the now precarious jenga tower.

Bura smiled sweetly. "Don't doubt me," she said, slowly easing her next block out and sighing in relief when it was one of the two elusive skips.

None of the really raunchy blocks had made an appearance yet and she just knew something terrible was going to happen soon, but Trunks had given her six drinks in round two and this was her second Marron cocktail. Doom was impending, but Bura felt fine. Marron herself became the thumb master next, followed by Goten having to chug his drink with a Down the Hatch block. Trunks's block skipped Pan's turn, and the cycle was back to Uub who was faced with a very spotty tower and limited options. Bura leaned forward, looking at the tower to see if she could tell which one he might pick and what it would say, when Uub touched a block near the bottom.

"You have to pull it!" Marron screeched, clapping her hands. "I pulled Touchy-Grabby! You have to pull it!"

Uub grimaced. Pulling from the bottom of the tower was almost certain to make it fall down at this point in the game, especially since the two chaos agents at the opposite end of the circle (who were wearing each other's clothes now thanks to the clothes swap block) seemed to be trying to make the tower as unstable as they possibly could. Bura certainly hoped it would collapse. She had seen the block before he touched it. But he wiggled it out no problem and turned it in his palm to read aloud.

"Santa," Uub said.

The effect was instantaneous yelling from nearly everyone, though for very different reasons. Pan was on her feet insisting that they didn't have to do it, but Goten was screaming that yes they fucking did because he had not spent the last fifteen minutes mooing any time someone took a drink for them to skip something without a skip block. Marron was just yelling and Trunks was trying to defend the tower, which had been wobbling ever since Uub said the S-word and everyone lost their minds.

"Fine!" Pan huffed, crossing her arms.

"Relax, Pan," Uub said softly, quiet enough that Bura probably wouldn't have heard it at all if she hadn't already been moving to take her next turn seated on Uub's lap. "It's just a game."

She sat down on the very edge of his knee, leaning forward and away as much as she could and keeping all her weight in her feet planted firmly on the floor. It was uncomfortable and her face burned red with embarrassment.

"That's not santa!" Marron teased mercilessly so that Pan threw daggers at her with her eyes. "Scoot back in there!"

"I would prefer not to," Bura said firmly. She was very aware, even with the distance she imposed between them, of Uub's body looming behind her. Was she imagining his gaze falling on her? Probably. It was hard to imagine him doing anything other than looking at Pan and silently begging forgiveness for having touched a bad block under the influence of Touchy-Grabby. _Knock it down,_ Bura told herself, and so she did, reaching for a linchpin in the middle of the tower on purpose and watching the whole thing topple over the table. She didn't even care which two blocks she picked up now to do as her penalty; the game was over and she leapt back to her seat.

"What did you get?" Trunks asked, gesturing to the final piece in Bura's hand.

She looked down and smiled.

"Goten cleans up."

* * *

Later that night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Bura found herself alone outside on the porch surrounded by the faint light of a half dozen citronella candles. She wanted to go to bed, too, but Pan and Uub were in the room she shared with Pan and she didn't want to be any nearer to that than she was at that exact moment. It was her own fault really. She should have moved all her stuff out to a different room as soon as the others arrived, but she and Pan were alone the night before and Bura hadn't had the foresight to see her current predicament. She let out a long sigh, leaning back in the big papasan chair where she had chosen to camp out and pulling a thin knit blanket up to her chin.

South Island was just as pretty at night as it was during the day. Out here, there weren't very many lights and the sky was the clearest Bura had ever seen. A ceiling of stars stretched out above her, a sparkling blanket over what felt like an endless expanse of foam capped waves stretching out over the horizon. The moon wasn't even full but the starlight was so bright she had no problem at all seeing straight down to the beach. She knew South Metro was less than thirty minutes directly northwest, but she couldn't see it and for a moment it didn't feel silly at all to think that maybe it wasn't there at all and this was all there was in the world.

"It looks good, doesn't it?"

Bura jumped a little; she didn't expect anyone to come back out and Uub snuck up on her. He didn't wait for her to answer before he came and pulled one of the rattan benches by the railing of the porch back towards her so he could sit and also see the ocean. Dressed in cut off sweatpants and a sleeveless tee that he had apparently also cut the sleeves off of, he looked comfortable but a bit ugly in the breezy night and Bura was struck with the notion that he had never considered his appearance even once in his life. He was very lucky his face was doing all the work for him.

"Your brother helps me do a lot for this place," Uub said, fondness creeping into his voice. "When I was a kid it wasn't nearly this nice, or so clean."

She was thankful they weren't talking about the Santa Incident from earlier and that her Saiyan blood had already metabolized the alcohol right out of her body. It was one of the better perks to being partially alien. The hot, out-of-control feelings from earlier that had sent her spiraling to her doom were gone, replaced now with a minor headache and the stupid, irrefutable knowledge that Marron's dumb game had landed her in his lap. If he didn't bring it up now, then she simply would never.

Bura tilted her head and stuck out her chin. "You mean Capsule Corp's environmental initiative here?"

Uub nodded, "Yeah. He was going to focus on reforestation in the mainland but I asked him to help here and across the island chain."

"Oh," Bura said softly. "I'm glad he did."

"Did you get burned today?"

Heat flooded Bura's cheeks at the sudden question and she was very thankful the dim candlelight hid her embarrassment, because she had gotten burned in more ways than just one. "Is it bad?" she squeaked. "I'm so careful with my sunscreen… I don't know what happened."

"It's not that bad," he assured her with a tiny laugh. "Maybe you just need better sunscreen."

"Maybe," Bura said, pulling her blanket up over her nose.

He didn't say anything else; he just sat there, face pleasantly bordering on serene, watching the tide until he was satisfied. When he finally stood up he stretched and put his bench back where he found it, telling her that he would be back in the morning through a stifled yawn.

Bura looked up at him, surprised. "You're not staying here?"

Uub explained that he didn't live very far away, capitalizing on the closeness by gesturing down a bike path. "And anyway," he said, "you should go to bed. I think Pan wants to go to the north shore tomorrow."

Of course she did. Pan was obsessed with the other side of the island because unlike Bura, she was actually capable of surfing. There was no other reason to go that far out of their way. Not that they were likely to go, or at least not as a full group. Bura doubted Marron would want to go either, and if Marron didn't go it was a toss up whether or not Goten would.

"Thanks for the warning," Bura said, standing up and wrapping her blanket around her body like a cape. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Uub parroted.

He was already down the steps and nearly out of sight by the time Bura began to blow out the citronella candles, and he was completely gone when she finished. It was odd that he would leave, she thought, but as she slowly ascended the stairs she found she couldn't remember if he had stayed last year, either, or if he had gone home at night. Hell, she wasn't even sure he had ever stayed the night at their apartment when he came to visit Pan. She always assumed he did but she spent so much time avoiding him that she couldn't really be sure. Quietly, Bura snuck into their room where Pan was actively snoring and climbed into her own bed resolute not to spend any more time thinking about it.

When morning came Bura found herself in a house full of lazy bones. Nobody else was awake, so she got dressed quietly and went down to the beach to look for sea glass in peace and solitude. On her way out the door she grabbed a shopping bag from the kitchen. If she was going to be beach combing anyway she might as well clean up a little, right?

The weather was significantly cooler than the day before, but that wasn't entirely unexpected and as the morning wore on the temperature rose back into the range that Bura would call 'balmy.' It was almost well and truly fall as far as the calendars were concerned, but no one told the islands from South Metro all the way to Kame House. By the time Bura returned to the house around ten, she was sweating and regretting not wearing her floppy hat, but she had several pieces of frosty white glass and one bit that was a bright bottle green. She also had one very full convenience store bag full of bits and bobs of trash and debris.

"Good morning~"

Bura froze at the trash bin like she had been caught doing crime. Uub was back, still looking kind of schlubby but also weirdly handsome. "Good morning," she said, throwing away the bag.

"Been busy, huh?" he asked lightly.

"No one else was awake," Bura defended. "So I went for a walk."

"To pick up trash?"

Bura squirmed. "To look for sea glass. The trash just also happened to be there."

"Right," he agreed, reaching into his pocket. Bura watched him suspiciously, then with confusion when he handed her a little cardboard tub until he explained that it was sunscreen. "I live above my shop," he said, "and I sell this there. My sister makes it and I've never seen a person get sunburned when they use it, not even tourists from the north."

"Really," Bura said, accepting the tub curiously. Inside was a mostly solid, likely mineral based sunscreen that smelled completely delicious, like someone had just cracked open a coconut.

"Reef safe too," he boasted, heading up the stairs to the deck where they had been the night before.

Bura laughed, "I should have known."

Inside the house everyone was awake, although Trunks looked like he really didn't want to be. Goten was in the kitchen flipping pancakes off an electric griddle and into giant stacks for himself and Trunks while Marron sleepily made something that might have been an omelette in the hands of a more skilled chef, but was now a poorly scrambled egg.

"Good morning!" Pan said brightly, earning a pillow thrown at her face by Trunks from the couch.

Uub moved to give Pan a quick kiss on the cheek and Bura went to try to help Marron, putting down her sea glass and her sunscreen on the way.

"Throw a pancake at him," Bura told Goten, gesturing at Trunks. "He'll be nicer once he eats."

And of course, he was nicer after they had all eaten only to become crabby again when Pan put it to the group that they head to the north shore like Uub had predicted. No one else wanted to go; they all had a bad case of not just being lazy but also being too aware of not being as young as they once were after a night of revelry.

Eventually, after a lot of pouting, Uub and Pan went to the north shore together while everyone else stayed behind for exactly the kind of vacation day Bura wanted most. They didn't do anything besides snack and have drinks and lay about around the house and on the beach. It was completely heavenly—and Uub was right. She didn't get burned anymore using the sunscreen he brought her.


	3. Wouldn't We All?

**South Metro, 3 weeks later**

The weekend ended and the second half of the semester began in an unrelenting whirlwind. It was all Bura could do to keep up. All her professors were assigning difficult assignments that counted entirely too much when calculating her final grade and her dance team held a second clinic with the choreographer from Satan City to fine-tune their dance for competition. It was completely brutal, but very satisfying. Bura approached dancing the way her father approached fighting or her brother approached an excel document; fervently and with every last ounce of her effort.

School itself got less of her attention. She attended her lectures if only to be seen arriving with a heavily whipped iced white mocha latte and generally turned in her work on time, but Bura had always been a middling grade student in both primary and secondary school and her college life was no different. The only part of her education that got the full force of her unyielding obsession was her couture project for her fashion design class. She did not care what Marron or anyone else said. Pampas grass was fine, and the fact that she had already embroidered dozens and dozens of the little beaded motifs onto her fabrics had nothing to do with her staunch position.

"Do you think you could stop by the supermarket on your way home?"

Bura looked up from her beadwork, needle in hand and tongue sticking out with concentration. Pan was in their little open kitchen attached to the dining room where she was installed with her work, staring morosely into what was an admittedly bare cupboard.

"Why don't you go?" Bura countered. She hated grocery shopping.

"I've got labs," Pan said. "I'll be home late."

"Well, I don't know when I'll be home," Bura responded stubbornly in a tone that suggested she was going to stab something with her needle. She wasn't. The fact was that she was embroidering on chiffon and her hands worked delicately no matter how annoyed she was.

Pan was unbothered. "I'll leave a list," she said, and she packed up her school bag and left. The list was abandoned in good-faith on the counter.

It was very typical, Bura thought, of Pan to run off and leave her with responsibilities. She decided then that she would not go to the store; she would rather starve. Still, when the time came an hour later to go to her own classes, she left her project strewn across the table and grabbed her school and dance bags and the list on her way out. She was dramatic but not a monster. She would go to the stupid store.

Once outside, the pleasant weather of South Metro with its gentle sea breezes and balmy sunshine improved Bura's mood immediately. The weather updates on her phone told her that it was already cold enough for thick jackets and boots on the mainland, but she was fine on her walk to class in sneakers and a chunky cable sweater. She had no doubt that further south on the small islands, like Uub's where they had just been a few weeks ago, that people were still swimming and wearing flip flops. It was a dazzling example of why location was everything; she and Pan picked this university on purpose when they were planning this phase of their lives for exactly this reason. The delightful, mild weather and wildly vibrant art scene were everything they could have wanted and more for a city that also happened to boast both a research hospital and the top school for bioengineering in the country. There was no other place on earth that could have suited them both so perfectly and Bura was a little amazed she got into the school at all. It still felt like a dream.

In the end Bura really didn't go to the grocery, but not out of spite. She didn't go because she honestly forgot. Class bored her out of her mind and then dance practice ran her ragged and by the time she was on her way back she had cleanly forgotten about the list Pan made. It was not a very lengthly list, but it was weirdly specific. They usually kept their kitchen stocked with staples like instant noodles, hummus and guacamole, and various vehicles for eating hummus and guacamole but not much else. More often, they ate take out as the young and the wealthy are apt to do. Pan and Bura were both, so it went doubly for them.

"You really forgot?" Pan asked, dumbfounded. "I left a list."

Bura was tired from practice. "Sorry," she said. She was also hungry. "Can we just order in?"

Pan resumed fluffing the pillows on their couch and Bura noticed that she had lit one of her expensive soy wax candles. "We'll have to wait til Uub gets here," Pan said stiffly. "He's got to eat, too."

"Oh," Bura said. "Are you guys watching a movie or something?"

"Yes," Pan said. "I was going to cook so we could have a late dinner but you didn't go to the store."

"I'm not your errand girl," Bura retorted. The shopping list she left made more sense now; it was specific because it was a recipe. "If you want to cook dinner for your boyfriend you should buy the food yourself."

"I had labs!"

"_How_ is that my problem?"

"Uh… knock, knock."

Both girls whipped their heads in the direction of the door, which was open now with Uub standing in it. He literally said knock-knock as he walked in the door, looking deeply concerned as to why they were yelling. Bura felt her anger deflate immediately; her chest went tight as she took in his expression. He had very animated eyebrows that lifted and contorted not only when he was puzzled or worried but also when he laughed, when he frowned, or when he smiled. It was a small part of what made him so charming.

Evidently, Pan was charmed too. She dashed forward and into Uub's arms, and Bura decided to go see what scent the soy candle was while pretending they were not kissing. He had visited them a few times since their island retreat and while Bura found it was easier now on the other side of that weekend to interact with him as Marron had said 'like a functional human,' she still found it awkward to spy on their love.

The candle was amber scented, which really threw Bura for a loop since she was pretty sure that was a type of rock. She put it back down just as Pan explained the grocery situation to Uub quickly, unfairly, and without giving Bura the opportunity to defend herself or get a word in edgewise.

He took the news well. "So, take out?"

"I guess," Pan said defeatedly.

She wandered into the kitchen and started rooting around in the drawer where they kept their collection of menus and Bura greeted Uub briefly with the usual niceties while making herself busy packing up her project from the table so she could work on it in her room.

"Is that the thing you've been working on?" Uub asked, settling on the couch and nodding at the vast quantity of golden yellow and sallow beige fabric she had sprawled everywhere. "It doesn't look lazy."

"Who said it was lazy?" Bura asked sharply.

He smiled brilliantly. "Marron. But don't worry, we all ignored her."

"She's got some nerve," Bura said darkly.

"Is anyone opposed to chicken and beer?" Pan said, holding up the menu to her favorite place.

"No," Bura answered.

Uub shrugged. "It's fine with me."

"Order some garlic parmesan wings, too," Bura added quickly, snapping closed the little sorting tray where she stored all the tiny beads she was using in her embroidery.

"Okay," Pan said.

Bura left them as Pan was dialing the number and retreated to her room in the back of the apartment, trusting them to come get her whenever dinner arrived. It was possible someone could accuse her of falling back on her old habits of running away from them but Bura herself saw it as an improvement. Last year she probably would have fled the apartment entirely, which was ridiculous since it technically belonged to Trunks. Buying and selling property was just a hobby of his at this point and he had jumped at the chance to purchase on the islands again when Bura started school. She suspected his dull inquiry on South Island if she was happy with the apartment was his way of trying to get her permission to sell it and buy her another. It fit his MO; he seemed to have a different chalet in darlinge polynya every year or so, but she liked this apartment just fine. It was spacious enough and she could walk to class comfortably, and her room had an amazing balcony. She didn't want to move.

She was on said balcony scrolling through her phone and not working on her project at all when Pan yelled to let her know that dinner had arrived, and Bura was not embarrassed to careen back into the living room dressed down now in her lounge clothes and perfectly ravenous. Bura did not have the same appetite as the other Saiyans and half Saiyans they knew, but she still had no shame when it came to a meal. At least she had the manners to offer some of her wings to the others. Pan took her up on it; Uub did not.

"No thanks," he said quickly, waving her away.

Bura did not take it personally and plopped the remaining wings onto her plate along side her portions of fried chicken and rice. "Your loss," she said.

"He's allergic," Pan clarified. "Pity him."

"You're allergic to chicken wings?" Bura asked stupidly.

He laughed. "No, to garlic."

"Oh," Bura said. "I do pity you."

Pan continued to rattle off his foodstuff maladies. "Garlic, onions, shallots…"

"Seriously? How do you live?" She felt genuinely sad for him now.

"It's called an allium allergy and I live on the edges of society, in the shadows, forgotten, degraded, and deranged," he answered flatly, then opened his beer by popping the top off the bottle on the edge of their table.

Bura looked between his beer and the bottle opener sitting on the table, mildly confused, but decided to let it slide. "So do they like, make you itchy?" she asked instead.

He lifted a drumstick to his mouth. "It's more of a gastrointestinal situation," he said.

"Nevermind!" Bura yelped. "That's enough. _Nevermind_."

Pan cackled. "Don't let her bully you, Uub. Bura has allergies, too," she said menacingly, and Uub's face lit up as he leaned forward over the table as if to hear better.

"Mine aren't life altering," Bura said. "A life without garlic is not life."

"Yeah, whatever," Uub said dismissively. "I can eat it, it's just not pretty. What's she allergic to, Pan?"

"As if that's your business," said Bura, but Pan had already told him.

"Bura is allergic to papayas."

Uub looked at Bura with wide eyes. "Now_ I_ feel sorry for _you_," he said.

"It… it's a latex allergy," she explained. "Papayas are just… kind of itchy. It's not like I'll die or anything. I risk life and limb every day for avocados."

Uub nodded seriously. "That's good. We all have to have something we're ready to die for."

"I'd die for guacamole," Pan agreed.

Bura sighed dreamily, "Wouldn't we all?"

There was silence for a moment, punctuated only by the sound of Uub putting down his drink a little too roughly.

"I can't eat that, either," he admitted sadly, and Bura tried so hard not to laugh she cried.

It was at this point, while dabbing her eyes and trying not to smudge her eyeliner, that Bura considered that maybe, she had completely gotten away with being in love with her best friend's boyfriend. She felt comfortable with him now, with both of them, with the idea of them together. When had that happened? Certainly not in the last 10 minutes, she thought, but somehow it happened without her noticing.

She looked between them. Pan was her friend. She had always been and always would be, even if that was something they had very little choice in considering they had been born into circumstantial friendship by the virtue of being girls of the same age in two deeply enmeshed families. It was a given. But now—and she had failed miserably at not smudging her eyeliner, it was everywhere—she felt like she could be Uub's friend, too. She leaned into the feeling and decided to let her newfound confidence grow.

Unfortunately, it was not her first mistake where Uub was concerned.


	4. Allegedly

**South Island, one year ago**

**(…give or take)**

_Bura was very nervous, but she would never admit it. It wasn't like she was doing anything crazily new or exciting; she was just going on vacation with her brother and his friends. Pan was going to be there, too, but not until late on Sunday. That shouldn't have mattered, though. Bura knew all of the people coming, most of them since birth, and they were all friendly with each other; there wasn't a reason to be nervous. But she was._

_This was the first time she was hanging out with them as an adult and she didn't want them to decide she was a baby, which she was aware was a very babyish thing to be worried about but she couldn't help it. She pulled her hair up in a high ponytail—a style that brought out the most adult angles of her face—and put on her plainest, most no-nonsense bikini under a pretty white cotton beach dress. She wanted to look like a woman and not just an eighteen year old girl pretending to be grown._

_Trunks gave her a hard time before everyone else got there. It was just the two of them plus Mai because everyone else wasn't due to arrive til after lunch, so he decided it was a good time to lay the ground rules._

_"I'm going to let you drink," Trunks said while stocking the fridge. "Don't take advantage of my kindness and get sloppy drunk though. I'm not going to hold your hair or whatever."_

_"What do you mean you're going to let her?" Mai demanded. "She's completely legal to drink here."_

_Trunks ignored his girlfriend's very right correction and kept going. "Marron will probably offer you a cigarette when she's drunk. Don't take it, please. I don't want to explain that to mom."_

_"You would tattle to mom?" Bura asked, incredulous._

_"I would," he said shamelessly._

_Mai nodded sadly, "He would."_

_"That's kind of shitty," Bura said. She didn't have much of a filter and said what she thought._

_"Then don't do it and we won't have a problem," Trunks deflected._

_"Fine," Bura said. She had no intention of picking up smoking, anyway. She saw her mom and grandpa struggle with their own vices. "But you don't get sloppy, either. I'm not going to hold your hair if you won't hold mine."_

_Trunks paused abruptly from loading down the fridge with beer and the motion made his man-bun bounce in offense, which was followed promptly by the sound of loud, infectious laughter from the open kitchen door. Bura turned her head immediately to see who owned it and smiled brightly at Uub where he stood. He was loaded down with groceries from the jet they flew down from West City and he had seen fit to help unpack without anyone asking. He was no blood relation to the Son family, but he had every bit of their hallmark blend of handsome helpfulness, and he had it in spades. His laugh was warm and deep, and his smile started in his eyes and reached down to his mouth instead of the other way around._

_"Is something funny?" Trunks asked them all, turning around with narrowed eyes._

_Mai spoke a little too quickly. "You're handsome no matter what, honey."_

_Bura blinked. "I didn't laugh."_

_Uub dropped the grocery bags he carried all over the kitchen island and let his grin split his face widely in lieu of a greeting. "Your hair is a joke and none of us should be penalized for laughing," he said._

_"My hair's a joke?" Trunks scoffed. "You're one to talk."_

_"This is the dignified coiffure of a man in my culture," Uub said seriously, gingerly touching his mohawk. "My father gave me this haircut the day I left for the Budokai."_

_Trunks's face reddened with embarrassment. "Are you for real? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that…"_

_Uub glanced Bura's way and winked, and in less than a minute of his entrance he was 2 for 2 in making Briefs blush to their toes._

_"Absolutely serious and I can't believe you would make fun of me."_

_Mai giggled and Trunks huffed angrily. "You're lying, aren't you?"_

_Uub laughed again and Bura tried unsuccessfully to stifle her own giggle. "You got me," he said and then he ran for his life while Trunks gave chase._

_"Is this normal?" Bura asked Mai when it was clear neither of the boys were coming back and she took up Trunks's job of shoveling beers into the fridge._

_Mai shrugged. "Normal is relative," she said sagely. "Don't try to read into anything, you'll only hurt yourself. Can you check the bags Uub brought in for things that need to go in the fridge?"_

_Between the two of them, Bura and Mai finished unpacking in the kitchen much faster than they would have with Trunks around talking nonsense at them both and decided to go down to the beach. It turned out Uub and Trunks were already on the shore doing everything they could not to relax. They were sparring and at first Bura thought it might be a real fight, but closer inspection revealed they were laughing too hard at the outrageous attacks they were naming on the fly to batter one another with for it to be real._

_"Weirdos," Mai said, shaking her head. She watched them go at it for a moment over her sunglasses then pushed them back up her face and turned to Bura. "Let's go down that way where we can ignore them."_

_So they did. They took their towels and their little cooler bag down the beach and far enough away from Uub and Trunks that they couldn't hear their screaming and settled down. They were talking about their summer moisturizers in comparison to their winter ones and on their second wine cooler each when the fight finally ended._

_"I won," Trunks announced, flopping down beside Mai._

_Mai kissed his cheek, "Good for you, honey."_

_Uub looked in their cooler and grabbed a water. "I allowed it," he said._

_Somehow, Bura believed him completely. There was something about his way that suggested that everything he said was an infallible truth, which was probably why he succeeded so often with his pranks and lies. He wasn't mean at all but he was certainly tricky, but that didn't matter. More than that Uub was kind and he was likeable, and Bura found herself naturally inclined to gravitate towards him. Or maybe South Island was just a small place, and Trunks's new beach house was even smaller. Either way she found herself perpetually in his orbit as the weekend drew on, enamored and happy, and so vindictively pleased when the few times she found herself without him he found his way to her._

_It was hard to keep her soft smile from transforming into a proud little smirk when he found her on the lanai on Sunday night. He looked happy (he always looked happy) and he said something about searching for her everywhere when he sat beside her on the rattan loveseat, immediately making himself comfortable like he'd been there for days already._

_"Marron is threatening to make us play board games," he said, nodding back towards the house. "Let's stay out here as long as we can."_

_"Okay," Bura said. She wasn't sure why playing board games was a bad thing but wouldn't have disagreed with him no matter what he said._

_He grinned at her. "It's best to stay away," he said. "Just trust me."_

_"Trust you?" she teased as if she didn't when she did._

_"At least on this," he laughed, checking his phone._

_Bura knew it was wrong to lean over and look, but she did. She glanced at his screen stealthily so he wouldn't notice while he was focused on typing up a reply and truthfully, she was glad she did before she made an even bigger fool of herself. Pan's name was right there at the top of the message and she felt so incredibly stupid for thinking he might have liked her when the obvious truth was right there. Of course he was with Pan. They knew each other well after all the years Uub was folded into her family, and Bura of all people knew about Pan's crush on him. How dumb of her to forget it._

_Uub put his phone away and turned his attention back to Bura, but it wasn't the same. The spark that ignited the conversation was gone and the fire died instantly. Bura was a lot of things but she wasn't so terrible as to flirt with her best friend's boyfriend, and she tried desperately to push her budding infatuation back down below the surface. As painful as it was Bura couldn't even be mad at anyone but herself for her faux pas; it wasn't exactly a surprise._

_Thankfully, Bura didn't have to fake a smile for long. Pan herself arrived soon after and when she did, Bura excused herself quickly from the lanai and left them to it._

_She found out then that Uub was not kidding around when he said it was better to avoid Marron and her games because she did end up sloppily drunk just like Trunks told her not to, but she didn't feel bad about it. It felt good. Marron held her hair and listened to her cry about how unfair it was that Uub was dating Pan and the older woman patted her back softly while cursing men alongside with her, never mind that she was actually a married woman._

_"It's not fair," Bura cried when Marron brought her a glass of water. She didn't care how immature she sounded now; it was the furthest thing from her mind._

_Marron nodded sadly. "I know it's not, baby girl," she said, "but that's life. If it makes you feel better I think we're all at least a little bit in love with him."_

_It didn't, but Bura pretended that it did._

* * *

**South Metro, present day**

Having the apartment to herself was a rare treat that Bura was enjoying to its full extent when he knocked on the door. It was weird, it was unexpected, and Bura was very confused to see Uub's face when she opened the door. For one thing, he generally let himself in anywhere he went. For another, Pan was not home. Bura stepped back, and apparently he felt more himself, because he walked right past her and started to take off his shoes.

"Pan's not here," Bura said, shutting the door quickly. It was colder than she liked out there and she was dreading the upcoming winter break when she would have to go back to West City to freeze like everyone else.

Uub looked down sheepishly. He looked embarrassed, and Bura felt embarrassed now, too. Did he forget? It was possible. Pan was going to be in Satan City all weekend for the grand opening of her grandfather's new, super elite, super cool dojo and Bura wouldn't put it past Pan to try to hide that from Uub. Uub loved Mr. Satan an embarrassing amount and did an absolutely wicked impression of the old man that Pan could not bear in the slightest. Maybe he forgot but it was just as likely Pan lied to avoid a spectacle, or worse Uub insisting that he should go, too. Or maybe he didn't know she was gone at all. She left pretty abruptly.

Bura changed the topic. They were friends after all, no? What did it matter why he was there or what he did or did not know?

"Sorry the place is a mess," she said in an even, measured voice while shuffling around him back towards the living room. "I wasn't expecting visitors."

"It can't be that bad," he said earnestly. He didn't acknowledge what she said about Pan at all and instead followed her only to stop short while taking stock of the absolute chaos she had created on and around the general area of the coffee table. Bura watched his eyes bug out from his skull while admiring his perpetual panda eye-bags more fondly than she should.

"Good grief, you're not done with this yet?"

She laughed at the sheer hopelessness in his voice as he surveyed her project. "I'm getting there," she said. "You can help if you want. I think I can finish the beadwork tonight if I work hard. It's the least you can do since you're here interrupting me for no reason."

It was a task separated from punishment only by degrees of nuance, but he helped dutifully anyway, handing her little glass beads when she needed one from across the table or finding her sewing scissors for her when she inevitably lost them every single time she put them down.

"Why did you pick this, anyway?"

Bura paused in her work. "Do not start with me," she warned.

He drew back. "Genuinely curious. I swear I don't know anything about fashion or anything like that."

Bura sighed. "You don't have to swear, I know it."

"…Rude, but deserved," he admitted.

"At least you know your flaws," Bura teased. Her earlier embarrassment, and indeed her suspicions at his presence, were fading away into the easy, friendly comfort she mistook for affection the year before. "I didn't pick it for any specific reason. They're just easy to embroider."

Uub snorted. "You decided to stick a thorn so deep in Marron's side she's never going to recover because it was easier for you?"

"Yes," Bura laughed. "You should know by now that I am a creature of least resistance."

"I can respect that," he said, laughing.

"As if," Bura said. "You're always working way too hard at everything."

Uub's eyebrows drew close together darkly. "I see you've never been to my shop, then," he said.

Bura paused her work and racked her brain. "Actually no, I haven't now that I think about it."

He sighed and stretched out across the sofa. "No one has. It's never open."

"Then why do you have it?"

"Because your brother said I should."

"Typical," Bura said, resuming her needlework. "He thinks everyone should be in some kind of business."

"He really does."

The silence that followed was very relaxed, which made it all the more jarring for Bura when Uub interrupted her again while holding some sketches of hers from her design book. He wanted to know what they were.

"This one looks cool," he said, sitting up and holding out a quick sketch of a model she prayed to all gods both known and unknown he had not noticed bore a striking resemblance to himself. The sketch was of a streamlined athletic wear and while he was absolutely right that it looked very cool, it was none of his business to be looking at it.

"Give that back!" Bura screeched, throwing down her pampas grass and diving for her sketches. She didn't care where she landed and briefly, they occupied the same cushion on the sofa as a result while she wrestled the drawings from him.

"Okay, but what are they?" he asked again. He was laughing at her mania and she had never been more offended in her life.

"They're private," she seethed. "Why were you in my notebook?"

"Your notebook was open, Princess," he said. "The jury will find I committed no crime in the court of law."

He picked up one of the sketches she made for school and held it up beside the sketches she snatched back from him, and even Bura had to admit that beside each other like that her little passion project looked very curious indeed. Her school sketches were all flowery, feminine, and traditional. Her models were long, lanky, high fashion waifs wearing thin shrouds in an approximation of a dress whereas the private sketches he brought to her attention were thick lined, powerful drawings full of stark colors and contrast. Bura took the sketch of her school project from him, too.

"Do you promise not to laugh?" she asked him softly.

He sat up straight when he realized she was being deathly serious. "I wouldn't laugh at you," he said.

"They're concepts for the sportswear brand I want to build when I finish school," she admitted, heat rising in her cheeks. "I know it's stupid. I'm not exactly the most athletic but…"

"I wouldn't say that," Uub interjected. "You're one of the most athletic girls I know. I've seen you dance."

Bura blushed harder. "Thanks," she said. She was even more thoroughly embarrassed now. "I just… I guess I'm athletic, but I'm not sporty. That's never been my thing. But my mom created all these amazing textiles for my dad to use when he fights and I think it's a huge shame to keep them locked up in the vault at Capsule Corporation."

"I think it's a good idea," Uub said immediately, too fast even, and Bura stared at him incredulously. "No, really! I think it's good. If you're so worried about people thinking its stupid then just make dance clothes first then branch out. But I don't think anyone will."

"Maybe," Bura said slowly. She put all the sketches back in her binder and closed it up. "You really don't think it's dumb?"

"I wouldn't lie to you about something you cared about," he insisted.

"That's… uh, very diplomatic of you," Bura said.

She realized then she was still very much in his space on the sofa from when she dove for her papers; this was a better Santa position than when they were actually sentenced to Santa during the weekend retreat. She wasn't exactly in his lap, but she was right beside him and close enough to feel him breathing and as soon as she noticed she sprang back to pretend urgently that it didn't happen. Uub seemed to realize their closeness at the exact same moment and while he didn't physically move away, he did angle his body away from her and cleared his throat a little too loudly.

"Anyway," Uub said quickly. "Your brother invited me skiing in darlinge polynya next month. That's when your school break is, right? Are you going?"

It was the first Bura was hearing of any trip to the chalet.

"He hasn't mentioned anything," she replied.

Uub looked disappointed. "Oh."

"I'm sure he just assumes I'll be there because I have nothing else to do," Bura said hurriedly. She had no idea where the words were coming from. "He probably didn't even think to invite me."

"Probably," Uub agreed, standing up. "I'm going to go. It'd be nice to see you there so it's not just me with Trunks and Mai."

This piqued Bura's interest. "They're dating again?"

"Allegedly," Uub sighed.

Bura understood his exhaustion. It was so difficult to keep up with them when they changed their minds so often about whether or not they were in love. She wished they would just decide and stick with it.

"Anyway," he said as he got ready to leave, "maybe I'll see you, maybe I won't. But if I don't and I'm stuck with those two I won't forgive you so think about that."

"I'll do my best," she assured him as she saw him to the door.

He didn't mention Pan and what her plans might be for winter break and Bura didn't bring it up, either. He had to have known that Pan was doing an internship in West City the entire break and couldn't possibly join in on any impromptu ski trips, right? Yes, of course he would know that. Talking about it wouldn't make it any more or less true.


	5. Is That Strawberry?

**South Metro / West City**

The last days of the semester passed by heavily under the pressure of their own weight, but Bura was confident she would pass all her classes with decent grades and finish her projects on time. The results of her labor regarding the dress she made for her design class were in and she finally gave up on it; it was good enough if not perfect and she was happy with it even if she was less happy with everything else happening around her. _Something_ was going wrong with Pan and it was starting to disrupt their daily lives. The apartment had a mean vibe in it whenever Pan was home and Bura was deeply tired of it—she could stress about her own problems just fine, she did not need Pan's problems, too.

"Can't you do that somewhere else? The scent is so distracting."

Bura was in the middle of applying a paraffin wax treatment to her hands as a treat for finishing her embroidery project and it was true, the smell of it was overpowering in their kitchen now that she was putting on the gloves.

"I needed the microwave," Bura replied. The kit she bought came pre mixed in little gloves that had to be heated up then cut open at the top to stick your hands inside. It was when Bura opened them that Pan began to complain; apparently she really hated coconut.

Pan shuffled some papers around on the table angrily. "Just hurry up, please."

"Relax already," Bura snapped. She was tightening up the velcro straps of the wax filled gloves around her wrists. "I'll be out of your hair in no time."

"…Actually, can you help me?"

Pan groaned loudly and stomped over to tighten up the bands on Bura's wrists for her with vengeance. Bura quickly put on her most penitent expression to little affect.

"Do not look at me like that," Pan said firmly. "I know you aren't sorry."

"Not really," Bura admitted. "Besides, should take a break. It's not like you aren't going to make A's anyway, you shouldn't stress yourself out.

"You sound like Uub," Pan said, rolling her eyes. "He's always telling me not to be stressed."

"Hm?" Bura pretended to be surprised. "Oh, yes. He's said that to me before, too."

Pan tilted her head, but said nothing more while Bura looked down at her wax covered hands admiringly. She didn't want to ruin the conversation by talking about Uub when she wasn't completely sure what was going on with them. He hadn't been by the apartment in weeks that Bura knew about and it was a little disconcerting. She entertained the idea that maybe Pan banned him from the apartment because he was distracting during exams, but more secretly and apart from even her cognitive thoughts—deep, deep in her subconscious—she suspected he was avoiding her. Occasionally when Bura decided to play at studying she would catch herself chewing on her pencils and thinking about the night he visited when Pan was in Satan City, and increasingly she was sure he had come with the intention to see only her. It was a suspicion that hit her almost immediately after he left, and it was what compelled her to keep it a secret, to ignore it, and convince herself that no, nothing nefarious was afoot. They were all friends, and he was just banned. The idea held up as long as she didn't scrutinize too hard; Bura herself was banned from whole parts of the apartment. It was very brave of her to even attempt using the microwave. And if it wasn't true, and Uub was behaving just as duplicitous as he seemed to be, then Bura was going to be in trouble.

Banned or not, the effect was the same. She barely saw him from the time he visited her and rifled through her papers until the end of the semester. She had been in touch with Trunks about the ski trip and worked out the dates and her invitation, but she had no opportunity to confirm anything with Uub. Eventually, and after an unhealthy amount of internal debate, Bura decided to text him and ask if he was still going. He sent back a single thumbs up emoji and Bura decided very purposefully not to think about it again until after classes adjourned.

"Are you sure you don't want to fly to West City with me?" Bura asked Pan carefully.

Pan was a little bit calmer after getting A's on all her exams but she was still absolutely stressed to the bone about her internship, and Bura approached with caution. Her friend looked up from where she was arranging business casual outfits on her bed and smiled hesitantly.

"I want to go on my own," Pan said. "But can you help me with these before you go?"

Bura grinned, "Of course!"

She dropped her bag in the doorway of Pan's room and rushed to her side to immediately snatch several frumpy-looking button down shirts off the bed and throw them in the corner. Pan yelped in protest and Bura shushed her.

"You asked for my help, and trust me… that was helping."

"My grandma bought me those," Pan pouted.

Bura shrugged as if it couldn't be helped. "You didn't cut the tags off, did you?"

"You're unbelievable," Pan said, shaking her head. "What about these skirts? Are they okay?"

The girls went through Pan's professional wardrobe for the next hour and eventually got together a solid set of interchangeable basics and complimentary statement pieces. Bura couldn't tell if Pan was really listening while she explained which items should go with which, but at least she tried. They folded everything up, packed Pan's bags, and set the thermostat so the air wouldn't run the whole time they were gone before they made sure all the lights were off and locked up.

"You're going to be fine," Bura assured her as they walked to the park across the street from their apartment. There was a little airfield inside the park where they could use their jet capsules. In the summer break, Pan might have opted to simply fly home under the volition of her own ki, but in the winter even Pan did things Bura's way and used a capsule. No one liked cold air in their face.

"I know that, but I just want it to be over," Pan admitted. "I've just had way too much going on and now I won't even really get to take a break."

"You'll be fine," Bura repeated confidently, glad it wasn't happening to her. "It's not true you won't have any fun. You'll have days off and I'll visit you. Don't forget it's my hometown and I know which bars will let us in."

Pan smiled at her and laughed, "Yeah, right. Just try not to have too much fun when you're skiing without me, okay?"

Bura sighed and opened her bag to look for her capsule case then tossed the fastest jet she owned on the tarmac. It was a custom build, not on the market, and a gift from her mom for her eighteenth birthday. The jet's body was mostly white with pretty gold accents and in the spot where normally a Capsule Corporation jet would be branded, it bore her name in soft rosy pink letters.

"I make no promises," Bura said, climbing into the cockpit. "I'll see you in a few weeks, okay?"

Pan nodded and waved her goodbyes, then stepped back to give Bura room to take off. Bura was an excellent pilot and anyone who got motion sickness when she was flying was a liar. It was a three hour flight to West City; Bura bet herself she could make it in two.

* * *

Before leaving for school Bura was never really away from home. Some of her classmates had divorced parents or distant relatives and would go away for weeks at a time during the summer, but Bura's entire family lived under one roof. Granted, it was a very big roof. But everyone was there: her grandparents, her brother, her mother, and her father. Until she left for South Metro University she had never been apart from any them. Of course, now that she had been away and on her own, there was no going back. She knew how annoying they really were now.

"Welcome home, sweetie!" Panchy shrieked the moment Bura's feet touched the ground. "We missed you so much!"

Her mom had set up an entire welcome home party on the landing pad in the courtyard and as soon as Bura saw it she considered doing a flyover, but decided to just get it over with. There was no actual harm in her grandparents and her mom being excited to see her, even if they were over the top even by Bura's standards. She also noticed they had a cake; Bura had never once turned down a cake.

"Is that strawberry?" she asked curiously while her mom squished her in a hug.

Bulma squeezed her one more time and let go, smiling. "It sure is."

Bura wasted no time getting a finger into the icing and licking it off. It was completely delicious and she immediately forgave them for making far too much fuss over her homecoming.

"How was the flight back?" Bulma asked.

"Fine," Bura said, rubbing her hands together. They were outside and while the courtyard was enclosed enough to block the wind, she was very cold. The temperature drop from South Metro to West City wasn't extreme, but it was more than noticeable and the leggings and long-sleeved tee shirt she was wearing were not sufficient. Her family were all dressed warmly in thick sweaters and warm boots, except for her dad who was still wearing short sleeves and joggers with running shoes and standing far enough away from their little party that his presence could be construed as an accident. Bura rolled her eyes.

"Daddy!" she yelled. "Come carry my cake inside, I'm cold!"

Bura saw him smile before he began pretending to be deeply put upon by her request, but he lifted the entire table with the cake and the little plates and forks on it and carried them inside to the lounge, then tolerated her hugs of thanks and even slightly hugged her back. One armed, of course.

"You can have the first slice," she told him warmly as Panchy began serving portions.

"Oh, may I?" Vegeta drawled.

Bura grinned up at him, "I'll allow it."

Trunks flung himself onto the couch after watching the entire exchange and sighed. "No one in this family ever loved me," he lamented.

"Aw, cheer up," Bura teased from beneath their father's arm. "You can have the second slice, big brother."

The men in the family dispersed after cake was had. Vegeta disappeared promptly at 7 which meant he was certainly watching TV and Trunks left on a phone call shortly after, while their grandpa trailed away to his lab without any sort of explanation. Bura fixed herself another slice of cake shamelessly; it was _strawberry_.

"Can we go shopping tomorrow, mom?" she asked, settling into the best spot on the sofa recently vacated by Trunks.

"Of course, sweetie," Bulma said. "Do you have something in mind?"

"I want a new jacket for darlinge polynya next week," Bura replied.

Bulma nodded. "You'll need new boots, too, and some cute new scarves…"

The three Brief women planned an entire war campaign on West City in the name of shopping spanning no less than three city districts and requiring Bulma to work the phone lines to make sure they had a reservation at their favorite teahouse to refresh themselves midmorning. It was at said teahouse that Bura reacquainted herself with her mother's barbarism. They had barely ordered their food when her mom began to ask about her love life, or more pointedly, the lack thereof.

"I'm only saying, Bura," Bulma insisted, as glib as ever and freely saying whatever she wanted, "college is the perfect time to explore your sexuality. You should get a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. It doesn't matter."

Bura, who had stuffed an entire char siu bun in her mouth to avoid responding, choked.

"Mom," she gasped, eyes watering.

Panchy tittered happily across the table from her daughter and granddaughter. "Oh, Bulma, leave her alone," she said. "I'm sure there's someone but she's never going to tell us if you treat her like that."

Bulma laughed haughtily. "Oh no, there certainly isn't. I would know."

"Would you, though?" Bura asked, sipping her tea and trying not to cough. She hoped she sounded coy and playful and not terrified.

"In an instant," Bulma threatened. "You think I don't keep tabs on you kids?"

Bura knew that she did, or at least tried.

"Anyway," Bulma continued. "You're at a lovely age for dating, baby girl. Don't let me or your father stop you."

"That's not stopping me," Bura mumbled into her teacup embarrassedly, her face burning bright pink despite her best efforts to stay calm and unaffected.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Bulma narrowed her eyes and Bura reached for another bun while avoiding eye contact. There was a reason she had grown up to be as secretive as she did. Bulma was not satisfied being on the outskirts of anything that was happening anywhere; she wanted to know what was going on and so Bura was not in the slightest surprised when Bulma brought up the ski trip next.

"You'll need to keep an eye on your brother and Mai for me," Bulma said tapping her nose. "I have a feeling it's going to stick this time."

"If it's going to stick then why do I have to keep an eye on them?" Bura countered, and Bulma shook her head.

"You've got no sense for these things, Bura," her mom said. "I blame myself."

Maybe she really didn't have the sense to understand other people. She certainly didn't understand her mom, or Pan, or Uub, or anyone else. Bulma asked a few more invasive questions about school and seemed especially interested in Bura's explanation of the last weeks of school and how weird Pan had been. She agreed that when the ski trip was over they would have to have Pan over to make sure her break wasn't a complete drag.

"We'll think of something," Bulma said thoughtfully. "What on earth made her decide to work straight through her break?"

"Who knows," Bura shrugged.

"Would you say that Pan's been distant lately?" Bulma asked suddenly.

Bura saw a spark in her mother's eye that frightened her. "No, not really," she answered slowly. "She's been stressed and mean but not distant."

"Interesting," Bulma said, glancing quickly at Panchy like she had just figured something out based on one cryptic question alone. She picked up the check from the table without looking at the total. "Now, let's go get you that jacket you wanted, sweetie."

They left the teahouse and hurried to a luxury shop that specialized in recreational gear where Bura tried on several coats but could not find one that she liked that did not have down feathers in it, so they had to go to a less exclusive shop to try a wider variety of brands. It took several hours and the entire time they were shopping Bura could not shake the feeling of deep foreboding that had fallen over her at the teahouse, but could not place the cause. Her mom and grandma were perfectly pleasant. The coat she bought was incredibly warm as well as ethical, black with golden zippers and snaps and a deep hood that fully covered her head. It fit her body prettily, and while they were in the shop she also found the perfect pair of new waterproof boots. Usually, when a shopping trip went this well she was nothing but elated; buying beautiful things successfully gave Bura rush of endorphins like no other, but not today. Something didn't feel right and she didn't know what it was.

"Is there anything else you need or want for your trip?" Bulma asked when they took a break again, this time for hot chocolates at small cafe in the city center.

Bura shook her head.

"Are you sure? You're leaving tomorrow."

"I'm positive," Bura said, and as she spoke she became aware of a dollop of whipped cream clinging to her upper lip.

"Oh, you're going to have such a wonderful time," Panchy squeaked, wiping Bura's face with a napkin for her. "I wish I could be as young as you! Going on vacations and getting into all sorts of trouble… you're so much like me when I was a young girl!"

Bura embarrassedly wrestled the napkin from her grandma while Bulma laughed. "Oh please, mom," she said. "If she was like you she'd have twelve boyfriends by now."

"Oh, but she only needs one," Panchy winked.

"You're both nuts," Bura seethed, beet red and so incredibly anxious that her heart felt like it might leap from her chest. She could feel herself getting sweaty and she wished now she ordered an iced coffee instead of hot cocoa. Beside her, Bulma sighed loudly.

"Youth," she said sadly, "really is wasted on the young."


	6. The Three of Hearts

**Jingle Village**

Trunks was very excited about his new chalet and for her part, Bura was tired of hearing about it. He didn't let her pilot the jet and refused to let her control the radio, either, so she retaliated by not listening while he described the process in which he outbid another wealthy businessman in Satan City for the property. Bura languished in the backseat until wordlessly, Mai stretched and slipped her the remote control to the radio without so much as a flicker of emotion across her sharp, pretty face. It was like Mai never moved at all except that now, Bura had the ability to make them all listen to the Top 40 instead of the weird coffeehouse channel Trunks had been subjecting them to for the past four hours.

Bura grinned and clicked through the satellite channels happily. She had always liked Mai the most out of any of Trunks's girlfriends and she thought she could understand why they always came back together, no matter what. Part of it of course had to be fate, and some small part of it must have been the almost overwhelming, classical beauty that overflowed from her, but more than that Mai was silly and kind and an even match for any bullshit Trunks could create. Bura hoped her mom was right; maybe they wouldn't break up this time.

"Did you give her that?" Trunks asked Mai when he realized his control was forfeit and he was going to have to listen to idols singing love songs for the remaining 45 minutes until they arrived at the chalet.

Mai put on her best shocked face and Bura immediately laughed at just how bad of an actor she was. "I don't know what you're talking about, Trunks," Mai said. "Give her what?"

"The remote!" he glowered, turning around and reaching with one arm for the remote. Bura scooted back in her seat out of his range.

"Uh-uh!" Bura teased. "You're not getting it back. We've been listening to acoustic hell the entire trip. We've earned this."

"You know there's buttons up here, too, right?" Trunks threatened.

Bura steeled her gaze, unperturbed. "Do you really want to fight me about this, Trunks? I _will _scan the stations for the next hour. You know I will."

It was not an an empty threat and Trunks knew this, and so Bura got her way and they listened to her station. Trunks was fuming, but at least he stopped talking about real estate transactions. In the front seat beside him, Bura observed that Mai was smiling pleasantly at his silence and tried to swallow the menacing little laugh that rose in her throat when she understood Mai's motive for handing her the remote in the first place. Silence was golden, especially when it came after discussing something as boring as escrow.

They landed very near the house and made a run for it with all their baggage in tow (no one wanted to make two trips) only for Trunks to fumble with they keys because of his gloves. Bura hopped up and down, happy to be wearing her new coat and a warm wool scarf. It was definitely cold but not completely unbearable and she squinted her eyes at all the blinding white around them. The snowbanks in the distance towards the village had to be taller than she was, but the roads were cleared and salted and little puffs of cozy smoke drifted up from every chimney in sight. She could hear children laughing and playing and see a few of them in the yard closest to their chalet all dressed in scarlet and lobbing snowballs at each other. It looked fun, but luckily for Trunks and Mai he got the door opened before Bura could scoop any snow up off the railing of the porch and take aim.

The chalet was outrageous inside; someone must have completely gutted the building at some point because the outside of the building didn't match the inside at all, at least not from the front facade. The side they entered from was pretty and rustic and not too different from the cottages that made up Jingle Village beneath them, but the inside was brutally modern. The foyer opened up to a great room dominated by an imposing stone fireplace and enormous windows that spanned the distance from the first floor up to the second to form a huge, open atrium.

"Isn't this a little much for six people?" Bura asked, following them inside and gawking a little from the foyer.

"Actually, it's just going to be us three until Uub gets here," Trunks said, grinning wickedly at how shocked both girls were with how well he had done choosing the place. "Goten and Marron cancelled because they have no taste."

"And you do?" Bura snorted, hurrying out of her snow-covered boots and hanging her coat over the stair rail.

Trunks grabbed the coat quickly and put in on the rack by the door, then checked the varnish of the wooden railing while glaring at her but Bura didn't notice. She and Mai both wandered in to the living room with their necks craning up forcefully at the invitation of the architecture. Upstairs the landing opened up to an indoor balcony around which the bedrooms lined up side by side, leaving most of the second floor open to the high ceiling, and for good reason. The colossal windows peered out over a sheer drop in the terrain filled with fog that was interrupted magnificently by the sharp spire of a glacial horn and maybe a half dozen other smaller, less inspiring mountaintops. It was enough to make Bura's breath pause in her chest.

"Damn," Trunks said loudly, sneaking up behind them and wrapping his arms around Mai. "I am so glad I outbid that guy."

Bura sighed and shook her head. How did her brother always manage to make everything, even the spending of millions of zeni, sound so cheap?

"I'm going to go pick out a room," Bura announced. The mountain's spell was completely broken by her brother's frank way of talking about money.

Trunks glanced at her on her way to the stairs. "Not the room with the jacuzzi," he warned as she stomped her way up. "That one's ours."

"Gross!" Bura yelled down at them, opening the first door as it appeared on her left.

"I said no!" Trunks yelled back just as Bura noticed the giant whirlpool tub in the adjoined en suite bathroom. She shut the door.

"Sorry!" She screamed over the balcony. "How was I supposed to know where the stupid tub was?"

He said something that sounded a lot like 'I told you the floorpan on the flight up but you ignored me,' but Bura ignored him again and opened every door she came across, eventually finding a cute room with a nice view at the end of the hall. She unpacked. Unlike their beach trip, where the clothes and paraphernalia were small enough to pack in bags, a ski trip required packing in capsules because everything was big and bulky to accommodate not just for the temperature, but for the sports. Not that Bura herself would be skiing or snowboarding—absolutely not. She put away her sweaters, her flannel pajamas, her fuzzy socks and her thickest, heaviest bathrobe and then finally, lovingly, she put away her ice skates then went back downstairs to join Mai in watching Trunks try unsuccessfully to build a fire.

"C'mon," Bura said, sitting on the floor and stretching her hamstrings. She felt so tight after such a long flight. "You used to set fire to stuff on accident all the time, why can't you do this?"

"She's right," Mai agreed. "This should be easy for you."

"Yeah, well you're both rude," Trunks whined, giving up with the matches and firing a small ki blast at the fire starter. Bura watched him do this, and she was almost impressed, except it immediately erupted into flames and Trunks jumped back, touching his face. "I'm fine," he assured no one in particular. "Still have both eyebrows."

"Aw," Bura jeered. "You could have at least singed one."

"Sorry to disappoint you," he replied. "Next time I'll make sure to stick my whole head over the grate."

"If you could only be so thoughtful always," Bura said when she stood up. "Now take my picture please, I want to brag at Pan."

It took all three of them an embarrassingly long time to take pictures and pose perfectly because they all really, really liked bragging. Bura went first, perching herself on the edge of the fireplace and going through all her cutest poses and gestures, then Trunks wanted to take pictures in front of his windows to send to Goten. Those photos were more difficult to take because he didn't want either Bura or Mai to reflect in the glass and the sun was already starting to go down when they started, so it was a race against the clock before the gorgeous view was traded for a mirror of black. Mai wanted pictures to send her friends, too, mostly of herself and Trunks cozied up by the fire.

"Wait," Bura said mid shoot. "You guys need hot cocoa. Wait here. Where's the capsule we packed the food in?"

"In my bag by the door," Mai told her. "Front pocket."

Bura left them on the sofa and rifled through Mai's bag for the capsule, then went to the kitchen to make the cocoa. She had an ulterior motive of course; she wanted a cup, too. Finding the cocoa powder and the milk was easy enough and she immediately packed the rest of the food back into the refrigeration capsule because she had no intention of putting the groceries away herself, but she did open every cabinet in the kitchen looking for the electric steamer and mugs. If Marron was responsible for cocktails whenever they got together, then Bura was in charge of hot chocolates. The secret was to add way more cocoa than what was called for and never, ever use water.

"Are you done yet?" Trunks yelled from the living room.

"Almost!"

Bura was waiting for the milk to finish heating and scrolling through her phone, picking out which picture to send to Pan. She found one that was unbearably cute—her face was all squished up with her hands framing but not quite touching it—and she sent sent it off into cyberspace with about a dozen little blue hearts underneath it. Pan would understand it meant, _'I miss you! I'm sad you're not here.' _

She returned to the living room with three cups of cocoa on a tray and served them to Trunks and Mai before putting the tray down behind her and opening her camera again.

"Try to look candid," she instructed, putting them into frame.

They sipped obediently and Bura tapped pictures both portrait and landscape until Mai was satisfied and smiling dreamily at the files she got from Bura, then they watched the sun fade away completely then played rock-paper-scissors to see who had to put another log on the fire. Trunks lost and swore.

"If Uub was here he'd be doing this," Trunks complained. "He likes this kind of stuff."

Bura placed her empty mug on the coffee table and spoke as nonchalantly as she could. "When is he supposed to get here?"

"Later this week," Trunks answered. "He said he had something to do on Wednesday and he'll be up after."

"And no one else is coming?"

Trunks turned to look at his sister just as he dropped the log into the fire and sparks flew from the impact. "Nope," he confirmed. "You're stuck with us until then."

It was exactly the situation that Uub himself was trying to avoid when he first brought up the trip Bura realized darkly. Somehow, she had been duped but more than that she had assumed rather blindly based on her conversations with Trunks that other people were coming besides herself and Uub. Oh well. There was nothing to do now but make the most of it, and Bura did her best.

She didn't ski but Trunks and Mai hit the slopes each morning without fail and went back after lunch, which gave Bura plenty of time to vacation how she pleased. On the first day she took advantage of the peace and quiet to park herself in a comfy armchair and do some of the required reading for the textiles class she was taking the next semester, and on the second she went ice skating and discovered a great cafe in the village she couldn't wait to bring Mai to later because they had the cutest pastries and she knew Mai would appreciate them (her brother would not look at them, only inhale them.)Then Wednesday came.

Bura woke up anxious, so she wasted a lot of time getting in and out of the shower and playing on her phone. Trunks and Mai had already eaten breakfast and left by the time she was even awake, so she was in no rush at all. Slowly, she went through all the motions of getting ready—picking out clothes, flat ironing the pointy bits of her hair near her crown into submission, and tweezing her eyebrows where they were thickest before applying clean-looking no-makeup makeup. Then she went downstairs, fixed herself something to eat, and nervously began to wait.

At some point in the day, Uub was going to get there and thanks in no small part to her mom and grandma's cryptic teasing, Bura was second guessing herself. What was she even doing in darlinge polynya? She didn't ski and she didn't like being cold and she hadn't even been properly invited in the first place. The only reason she was there was because Uub asked her to be and that sounded an awful lot like a date when she thought about it now. Except it wasn't, and it couldn't be. He was dating Pan. And yet, later that evening long after the slopes closed and the sun went down, when Uub finally arrived, her treacherous heart skipped a beat when she saw him then skipped another when he smiled.

He was unbearably cute in puffy winter clothes that were definitely dated but so meticulously on-brand for him that Bura had to believe he did it on purpose, and his mohawk poked out from beneath his skullcap in a tuft of black on his forehead like a baby. He grinned at them all.

"Am I late?" Uub asked, stripping out of his jacket after they were all done bellowing their hello's. He sounded tired and looked it too, Bura noticed, when he joined them in the great room.

"You're just on time," Mai told him. "We were about to play cards and now we can play teams. Do you want some mulled wine?"

He sat down on the couch beside Bura, an appropriate distance away. "Sure," he said. "Can you put extra orange slices in my cup? What are we playing?"

The boys began to argue then about whether they should play spades or hearts and which game was better for teams while Bura curled up beneath a cashmere throw blanket with her mug of mulled wine, wondering what she had ever been nervous about. There was nothing amiss with Uub except maybe some missing sleep; the dark circles around his eyes were deeper than normal and couldn't be attributed to unfortunate bone structure alone. Bura stared at him and felt her face pinch in utter confusion when she noticed little ice crystals in his eyelashes. It wasn't snowing, so…

"Did you _fly _here, Uub?" Bura spat the moment she realized it.

He startled. "Uh… yes?"

Bura was stunned, but Uub just shrugged and graciously took a mug of hot mulled wine from Mai who was back from the kitchen. Clearly, he was insane and Trunks agreed.

"What the fuck, Uub," Trunks said, his expression mirroring Bura's. "You really just flew here?"

"You know I don't have a jet," Uub said carelessly. "Besides, it's not that bad."

Trunks turned to Mai. "Goku's broken him," he said teasingly. "We've got to do something about this."

Mai rolled her eyes, "I'll call the gang."

They settled on playing spades and broke the teams down girls versus boys first, then Briefs versus guests. It was agreed that it was unfair for Trunks and Mai to be a team when they could read each other's expressions so well, especially when Mai was so good at playing cards. Bura found it very unfair seeing as she personally kept forgetting the rules. Once, shortly after Bura finished her third mug of wine, Uub even tricked her into showing him her cards, not that it helped him any. They both played so poorly it didn't matter.

"You're both awful," Trunks said, completely defeated. Mai nodded beside him. "Like, I can not think of anyone else I know who is worse."

"We should play them," Mai said. "I think we could win every hand."

"That's not mathematically possible," Uub countered, downing the last of his mulled wine. He looked a little drunk, Bura noticed, which was odd since she had definitely seen him drink far greater quantities of alcohol before but she supposed it was just that wine always hit the bloodstream differently. She felt it too and hiccuped.

"We'd win at least one hand," Bura agreed, nodding her head vigorously.

Trunks crossed his arms, "Do you want to bet on it?"

"Bet what?"

Trunks thought about it then snapped his fingers when the perfect prize came to him.

"If we win I get to sell your apartment," he said with a grin.

Bura's jaw dropped. "That's insane!"

"Are you afraid?" her brother leered.

Beside her, Uub spoke around the wine-infused orange slices he'd hamstered in his cheeks. "Those are fighting words, Bura," Uub said. "Let's kick his ass."

"Fine," Bura agreed. "We only have to win one hand, right?"

"One hand each," Trunks added, changing the rules.

"That's not what we agreed to!" Bura protested.

"Yeah, well Mai's already dealing the cards so those are the rules now," Trunks shrugged. "Take it or leave it, but if you leave it that's forfeiting and I'm gonna sell your house."

"You're a monster," Bura said, picking up her hand. She couldn't tell if it was any good.

"Swap sides with me, Uub," Mai said. "You can't sit together if you're a team now."

Uub and Mai stood up and switched seats so that Mai was on the couch now and Uub was on the floor on the other side of the coffee table where they were playing, and Bura found herself sliding off the couch to sit on the floor, too. She was still wrapped up in a cashmere throw blanket and very comfortable despite the fact she was in the middle of a fight to keep her apartment. Gameplay commenced and for a while it looked like they really might not win any hands (Bura forgot the rules again and played in the wrong order), but in the end she won twice and Uub won three times. It had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with Trunks and Mai just running out of decent cards.

"Casa Bura stands," Bura said cheekily when the final hand played out.

Trunks yawned like he never hand a stake in the game. "You were bound to have some kind of luck eventually," he said, shifting into a stretch.

Mai caught his yawn while she pulled the cards towards her to shuffle, stopping to cover her mouth with her hand.

"How did it get so late?" she asked sleepily. "What time is it?"

"11:40," Bura said, checking her phone and noticing Pan never opened her text message. She clicked the screen locked again and it went black.

Mai was ready for bed it seemed, so the game ended and the other two went upstairs and left Uub and Bura to clean up with instructions to make sure the fire died down appropriately before they went up to their rooms. Neither of them made any move to pick up the mess. The atmosphere deflated as soon as they were alone, a quick and overwhelming shift like drawing back the curtains and letting in the light. Bura thought she could see Uub clearly now; he was more than tired and she could see that plainly on his face illuminated by the fire, but she couldn't tell what it was that made him seem so heavy.

"Are you okay?" Bura asked him softly. Uub looked up, staring at her from across the table, and his lips twitched but he didn't smile.

"I had a fight with Pan," he said flatly, and he didn't elaborate any further.

"I'm sorry," Bura mumbled, unsure of what else to say. She pulled the scattered playing cards towards her from all across the table top, stacking them back up and shuffling the deck. "Is that why you got here so late?"

Uub didn't answer her and Bura shuffled the deck again, chewing her lip and wishing she'd had the foresight to go to bed at the same time as Mai and her brother. Her anxiety hadn't been misplaced after all. Something was different now and Bura didn't like it.

"You know," she tried again, "I used to be really into fortune telling when I was a kid. I read about it in some magazine… I could even tell your fortune right now with just these cards."

Uub raised one eyebrow to an absurd height of skepticism and Bura flashed a nervous smile to have his attention.

"Can you?" he asked doubtfully.

"Certainly," she insisted, sitting up on her knees and assuming the air of a carnival fortune teller. "First, draw three cards."

Uub snorted, "Is this a magic trick?"

"No!" Bura said defensively. "Now draw."

She fanned the cards out in her hands and he pulled out three from the middle, which she quickly took from him and explained that she'd lay them out in the order her picked them to tell his fortune. Each card, by its number and its suite, had a meaning and the order they appeared in built upon that.

"So let's see," she said, flipping the first card. Her heart plummeted straight to the pit of her stomach; it was the Two of Spades.

"What's it mean?" Uub asked curiously. He had decided to play along.

Bura put the card down on the table. "The first card is a link to your past, but it's a warning," she said slowly. "It means that something is going to be interrupted."

"Something?"

"Something like a relationship," Bura squirmed, face going red. "It's a card to warn about a relationship interrupted by deceit."

"Oh," he said, picking up the card with a blank, serene expression. "All that in just this little card?"

"Yes," Bura said miserably, wishing she hadn't started this.

Uub considered the Two of Spades a moment longer, then put it back where Bura placed it. "Flip the next one," he said. "Let's hear it."

"The second card relates to the present," Bura said, flipping it and praying it would be kind. "The Three of Hearts. It usually means love and happiness."

Uub looked between Bura and the card suspiciously, "Only usually?"

"…It can also mean someone is being fickle," Bura admitted, "if the card that comes before it is negative."

"Huh," he said. "Okay. Is the last card the future?"

"Yes," Bura nodded, thankful he only drew three. She flipped the last card and could have screamed in frustration. "The Five of Spades."

"It's probably bad too, isn't it?" Uub asked with a small laugh.

Bura thought of how to best evasively answer, "Maybe. It's a card of obstacles and opposition, but not a card of permanence."

Uub leaned forward, "So you're saying it could be worse?"

"I guess it could," Bura said nervously. "The cards you pulled are only negative because the first one is so bad… you should have pulled more hearts. They're all such happy cards and so much more fun to pretend that they're real…"

"Who said I'm unhappy?"

His words hit her like a bolt of lightning, unexpected and disorienting, but Uub took her chin in the palm of his hand and grounded her in the moment. She could feel the callouses on his palm against her cheek as he lifted her face, her eyes slowly leaving his cards on the table and settling on his gaze. All traces of weariness were gone from his eyes, replaced now with a fearlessness that Bura watched flicker dangerously right before he kissed her. It was a sweet, gentle kiss that stood to answer the only open ended question his fortune asked. This was not capriciousness; this was a decision.

They broke apart and Bura blinked, frozen to the moment and confused how it ended so quickly. Uub leapt to his feet in embarrassment.

"Sorry," he said, turning to leave, but Bura jumped up after him and grabbed his arm hard and fast.

"Don't go," she begged. "If you leave now, that would be worse."

He acquiesced to her selfishness and they both slipped back down to sit on opposite sides of the table once more; behind them, the fire popped loudly and the half burned logs cracked and dropped into the embers. Neither looked.

"Read them one more time," Uub said, nodding to the cards. "Your draw."

Bura nodded and began to shuffle them, "Okay."

She drew: a heart, a heart, a spade.

"Is it any good?" Uub asked.

Bura smiled hesitantly, "Yes."

Silence followed, and they kissed again.


	7. Grilled Cheese x4

Bura avoided making eye contact with Uub in the morning and waited until everyone declared they would be hitting the slopes to announce that she was not feeling well, so she would stay indoors. Uub stared at her as she spoke but she pretended not to notice, and if he noticed her staring at him while they prepared to leave then he gave no indication, either.

She sank into one of the big, comfy armchairs in the great room with her reading for textiles class and tried to focus, but her eyes kept drifting to the stack of playing cards that were still sitting where they left them on the coffee table. Her gaze slid from the cards then back to her book to read the same sentences over and over and over again until her eyes hurt. They were taunting her and continued to do so until she stopped what she was doing to put the cards away in a drawer. It helped, but her mind still wandered so she got up and made four grilled cheeses.

It was an attempt to eat her worry because even though it was beautiful outside, winter white and gleaming in the sun, Bura was trapped beneath a private storm cloud. Soon, Uub would come back and she knew she would have to talk to him about what happened the night before and why it could never happen again. She dreaded every second of unpleasant waiting, torturing herself in an endless loop where every half hour or so she imagined Pan finding out what they had done and sent herself into a fresh new spiral of fear.

The grilled cheese didn't help and when others came back for lunch Bura peeled herself off the floor near the windows to greet them, half dead with anxiety but trying to smile like nothing was amiss. She saw Uub taking off his boots by the door and thought briefly, very briefly, of pulling him aside and getting it over with but thankfully, Mai swooped in with a welcome diversion.

"Have you eaten yet?" Mai asked her, nose red from the cold. "There's a restaurant in the village we want to try."

"I said count me out," Uub called from the foyer and Mai waved him off.

"It's an Italian place, ignore him," she said. "Do you want to go?"

Bura lit up and lied, "That sounds delicious! I'm starving, I haven't eaten since breakfast. Let me change clothes."

And she fled up the stairs, stomach full of grilled cheese and butterflies, and changed out of her pajamas and into thermal leggings and an oversized sweater. Her coat was hanging by the door where Uub had been taking off his boots, but he was thankfully gone when she came back down. Faintly, she thought she heard the sound of the shower turning on while she wrapped her scarf in a double loop around her neck and fished her hat out of her coat pocket.

"Let's go already," Trunks whined. "I'm starving, too."

"I'm ready," Bura said. "Geez… impatient much."

Because the day was so outrageously sunny and pretty, they walked down to the village and by the time they arrived at the little pizzeria Bura was sweating in her heat tech. This, this was exactly why she needed to make her own line of sportswear. The fabrics her mom created for her dad did not have this issue; they didn't cook you alive at the slightest bit of exertion.

"You feeling alright?" Trunks asked when they got a table.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," Bura said, picking up a menu.

Trunks was unconvinced, "You sure? You said you felt sick this morning."

"I was just tired," Bura said stubbornly.

Thankfully he didn't press any further and they just ate their garlicky, carb filled meal in peace. Bura was completely stuffed and felt a little bit ill even though she only had a salad when Mai mentioned she wanted to go ice skating before the week ended while giving Trunks a meaningful look. Bura understood what she was after; Mai wanted to go on a date and Bura was third wheeling. Well, she had been _invited_, thank you, but she didn't have the energy to be offended. Besides, Trunks didn't like ice skating and Bura was glad to help Mai force his hand.

"Why don't you go now?" Bura said brightly. "I'm feeling a little tired so I think I'll just head back to the chalet."

Mai smiled pointedly, "Yes, why don't we?"

"I guess," Trunks said defeatedly, but he winked at Bura and she got the distinct feeling that they had played into his trap and not the other way around.

Bura went back but not without looking over her shoulder at Trunks and Mai disappearing into the village once or twice, wondering if she was supposed to sneak after them or not. Her mom would almost certainly prefer it if she did. Bulma wouldn't have let them out of her sight in her fervor to spy, which sealed Bura's decision to leave them alone and go home. She huffed her way up the hill and let herself back into the chalet, cautiously hoping Uub had been more successful than she had in finding some other way to occupy himself. If he was in there just waiting on her she was going to die.

He wasn't. It was as if there were no one else was in the building at all and Bura felt relief, but also disappointment. Shedding her layers, she hurried up to her room to shower away the grungy feeling she got after sweating inside her jacket. All the bathrooms in the house were so insanely luxurious she also thought she just might relax if she took her time. Heated floors and built in towel warmers took all the chill out of equation and Bura washed and moisturized every part of herself meticulously before putting on pajamas, which was when the horrible epiphany that she had let Trunks borrow her hair dryer the day before came crawling back to her just as a knock came from the door.

Bura froze, her soft blue hair dripping wet and panic rising in her veins. She half expected Uub to just open the door himself immediately after knocking—that was what he usually did, anyway—but he didn't. Then she thought if she just didn't respond at all he might go away, but to her surprise he knocked a second, softer time. He must have known they had to talk, too, she realized, only he wasn't quite as cowardly as she was.

The thought helped her seize upon her own courage and she opened the door. Uub startled when she answered, his expression shifting rapidly from thinly veiled desperation to surprise and then something else shockingly final and determined.

"Can we talk?" he asked and Bura was blown away by the sheer inevitability he embodied, but he sounded so much gentler than he looked that Bura felt herself begin to relax.

She nodded slowly, "We have to, don't we?"

It was the truth; they had to talk, but neither of them said anything as they sat side by side on the edge of Bura's bed. She stared at her ice skates and wished faintly she had just followed her brother and Mai and avoided whatever was coming indefinitely until the end of the trip, then set her jaw and crossed her arms. She could face this—she had to if she wanted to keep any part of her friendship with either of them, Pan or Uub. He spoke.

"About last night…" he said slowly, not looking anywhere in her direction. He stared at the ice skates, too. "I'm sorry, Bura."

"It's okay," she breathed. "I'm sorry, too. Let's just, let's forget it happened."

She expected him to agree to that much, to acknowledge that if they were going to turn back the clock on their mistake they would have to bury it and act like it never happened, but instead Uub smiled faintly. He lifted his eyes up off the floor and looked her over steadily before he told her no.

"I don't want to forget about it," he said plainly.

Bura gaped at him like he had grown a second head.

"What do you mean you don't want to?"

Uub shrugged, "I mean I'd like to remember it fondly, and that I'd like to do it again."

"No," Bura said. "We can't do anything like that ever again. We can't."

"Can't we? he asked flatly, leaning back on his palms.

"Absolutely not," Bura seethed. She found herself on her feet, facing him, hot with either embarrassment or outrage or both. "I don't know what I did to lead you on but Pan is my friend and we shouldn't do shit like whatever this is, so let's just forget it while we can."

When Bura said Pan's name the soft smile Uub dared to wear fell right off his handsome face, replaced with a dark look that pulled all his features down into a grimacing caricature of his usual happy, enigmatic self.

"Why do you do that?" he asked her heavily.

Somehow, she felt caught. "Do what?"

Uub shook his head, "Did I do something wrong to you, Bura? Or do you just not like me? It's fine if you don't, but stop treating me like this and giving me excuses."

"What are you talking about?" Bura snapped, fully incensed again at the implication that this was her fault alone.

"You always defer me back to Pan," he answered.

_"Because she's your girlfriend!"_ Bura screeched, absolutely dumbfounded that it even needed to be said. "Maybe if you owned up to that earlier or more often or even _consistently_, none of this would have happened!"

"Owned up to it?" he demanded. _"Owned up to it? _You told me to go after her! You all but pushed us together and now when we're breaking up, you're still doing that and..."

"Excuse me, _I_ pushed you together? I saw you text her," Bura spat. "Last year, at the beach house when we were on the lanai, you… are you okay?"

Something had passed over Uub like an invisible wave, wiping his contorted face free of disgust and anger and leaving nothing behind but a calm, luminous serenity that confused Bura on its own, then alarmed her when he began to laugh.

"You saw me texting Pan?" he said. "Last year?"

Bura crossed her arms defensively, "Well… yes. You were texting her that Sunday, and she got there a little bit later, so I went inside to play games with Marron…"

He began to laugh harder, but it was a joyless, bitter sound. "Bura," he said, "I think you've had a big misunderstanding. I didn't start dating Pan until after that weekend. You saw me text my sister, Panaka."

Bura felt her soul leave her body.

"Panaka," she said. "Your sister, Panaka."

He smiled painfully at her, "Panaka makes the sunscreen."

"Panaka makes the sunscreen," she repeated.

Tentatively, Bura sat back down beside him and tried to grapple the depth of her own self-deception. She thought back to her first beach weekend on South Island and the short time before Pan got there, when she thought things had been going so well until she snooped and saw that message.

"You really weren't already with Pan?" she clarified quietly.

"No," he said. "I wanted to talk to you that weekend but I thought you weren't interested since you called Pan over whenever I tried."

"I'm so fucking stupid," Bura squeaked, dropping her head into her hands as Uub laughed again. This time he sounded much more like himself and she peeked at him from behind her fingers.

"You're a snoop but you're not stupid," he assured her, pulling her hands from her face gently and holding them in his own. "You're just a good friend."

Was she? Would a good friend let him kiss her and invite him to do it again? Let him hold her hand? Uub laced his fingers through hers, evidently thinking nothing of it, and Bura stared at the gridlocked connection.

"And you broke up with Pan?" she asked softly.

"I did," he said.

"Is that what you were doing in West City yesterday?"

He nodded, "Trying to, at least."

"I'm so sorry," Bura said mournfully, and Uub squeezed her hand. "If I wasn't so stupid she wouldn't be hurt."

"You shouldn't think about things like that," he told her. "You'll make yourself unhappy."

Bura almost laughed and cut her eyes at him, "'Who said I'm unhappy?'"

"Are you mocking me, Bura Brief?"

"Absolutely not," she said, leaning in towards him slightly and then letting him close the gap between them. She couldn't say if it was their third, fourth, fifth kiss because she had lost count the night before, but it felt just as electrifying as the first. His lips moved slowly against hers and she felt a deep, jealous greed that this could have been her reality for more than a year. Uub could have been hers before, but what did that matter if he was hers now?

He pulled away and asked her earnestly, "So you're okay with this now? You don't want to forget it?"

"No, I don't," she said breathlessly, eyes flitting over his lips. Had she always been this selfish?

"Good," Uub said, laying back on her bed and pulling her along with him. She fit perfectly against his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. "Glad we're on the same page now, because I wasn't going to forget it even if you wanted to."

* * *

"Do you think they got lost?"

"I don't see how, it's a tiny place."

"…Trunks's lack of direction can be pretty impressive."

Bura sighed, "You aren't wrong."

Uub and Bura were downstairs on opposite ends of the sofa, trying to look as inconspicuous as two people who had spent the last few hours sharing secrets and making out could. Whether or not they were together in any official capacity Bura had no idea, but they were at the very least in full acknowledgement of each other and that was enough for now. They agreed it was best not to be found by Trunks and Mai in Bura's bed whenever they got back and came downstairs, but that was nearly half an hour ago. Where were they?

"Sorry about your hair," Uub said after a moment of silence and Bura sighed again. "Does it always do that?"

She knew he was referring to the life-altering cowlick on the back of her head and not the knots laying down with wet hair gave her. "Unfortunately yes," she said, working a wide toothed comb through the worst of her tangles. "It's a genetic 'blessing' from my dad that I usually flat iron down."

"It's cute," he teased. "If I thump it, will it pop back up?"

"Don't you dare try," she warned as he crept closer.

The front door banged open noisily and Trunks appeared in the doorway with Mai right behind him.

"You get away this time," Uub joked before turning in his seat to greet Trunks and Mai. "Did you get lost in a snowbank?"

"Not today," Trunks said smugly.

Bura eyeballed her brother suspiciously first, then Mai. They were hiding something—she could tell from the happy way they kept looking at each other from the corners of their eyes, from the chaotic energy stretched between them.

"What's going on?" Bura asked seriously, glancing quickly now between the two. "What did you do?"

Trunks hung his coat and grinned, "Should we tell them, Mai?"

"I don't know, do you want to?" Mai replied devilishly, and Bura could have screamed.

"I guess we could…"

Uub glanced at Bura, thoroughly confused. "What's going on?" he asked. "I don't get it."

"Shhhhh," Bura said, transfixed.

If her suspicions were correct they were about to hear big news and she was grateful that she and Uub decided to keep their own relationship, whatever it was, secret just a little longer. Mai smiled her prettiest, slyest grin at Trunks, and that was nothing new to Bura, but the look in Trunks's eye when he tenderly, carefully returned it was something she had only seen one place before: it was the way her father looked at her mother and when he thought no one else could see them.

Bura let out a little shriek, "Congratulations!"

"No, really, what's going on?" Uub asked again.

"They're going to get married, duh," Bura said, leaping to her feet and running to hug them both. "I'm right, right?"

"You are," Trunks laughed. "How'd you guess?"

Bura beamed, "Intuition."

"That can't be true," Uub said quietly, and Bura shot him a warning glare over her shoulder as if they had not spent the past year apart from each other as the result of her poorly interpreted 'intuition.'


	8. Fear on Fire

**Jingle Village / West City / South Metro**

If Trunks or Mai noticed anything unusual about Uub or Bura they didn't say anything about it and Bura was grateful for their discretion, deliberate or otherwise. Her last two days in darlinge polynya were spent happily sneaking around Jingle Village with Uub, stealing kisses and even once agreeing to try snowboarding when he offered to teach her.

"Where did you even learn to snowboard, anyway?" she asked him on the lift. His arm was snugly around her shoulders and for once in her life she didn't feel the cold, not even a little bit.

"It's not that different from surfing," he replied easily.

"I… I don't think that's true," Bura said, to which he replied:

"How would you know? You can't surf, either."

It turned out she was not very good at snowboarding even after a full day of instruction but Bura hadn't minded in the slightest. Usually, she didn't like to do things where she knew she would embarrass herself but it was different with Uub. He laughed but he didn't laugh directly at her, and more than feeling embarrassed she just felt pleased to see him smiling because of her. It brought out the sillier parts of herself that growing up made her put away and when Saturday came and he was leaving first, Bura found herself caught up in childish sadness to see him go.

"Stop looking at me like that," he joked. "If your eyes get any bigger they'll fall out of your head."

Bura watched him finish packing, silently judging every single one of his terrible screen printed hoodies. "I'm not sorry for being sad you're leaving," she said stubbornly, but she did try to neutralize her expression.

"I'm not disappearing," he said, zipping his bag and adding it to the crate of his things in the middle of the floor. He had his own snowboarding gear but rented the actual board because once a year trips weren't enough reason to own one, or so it had been explained to Bura. It struck her as odd not to go buy something for yourself as soon as it was needed, even if it wasn't needed that often, but Uub did not seem to care about waiting in lines or sharing communal property. If he didn't need it, he didn't need it—and that was that.

She wished he would offer her more than a big smile or a soft kiss, but he didn't. He didn't even tell her when they would see each other next, only that it would be soon. That most likely meant not until she was back at South Metro if Bura had to guess. As reluctant as Uub was in the matter, he did have a shop to run and he had been away for a week. He had other, actual responsibilities. They could not stay here and play forever.

Shortly after Uub left, Bura, Trunks, and Mai climbed into the jet and left, too. Bura watched the chalet disappear from her window and hoped Trunks wouldn't sell it. Already she was feeling sentimental for a time and place she had only just experienced and she hoped she could come back and relive it soon because she was no longer certain about the future. Several things she assumed would be constant were definitely under threat, and possibilities she thought were off the table were suddenly tangible and real right in front of her. It was hard to be undaunted.

As expected, Bulma was privately furious with Bura later for not being more deeply entrenched in her brother's business and willing to talk about it. Their mother was by no means caught completely off guard by Trunks's engagement, but Bura would be damned if she hadn't wanted immediate confirmation about it in realtime. Bura apologized meaninglessly without looking up from her phone and Bulma sighed in exasperation before plucking the device right out of her hands. It was just as well. Uub had not called and she was too scared to contact Pan. She just kept tapping between both of their names, back and forth and back, without doing anything.

"What about you then, hm?" Bulma asked, dropping the phone on the coffee table.

"I'm not engaged," Bura said blankly and her mother smacked her with a throw pillow.

"You better not be," Bulma said. "You're far too young to be so serious. But you _were _out there in all that snow, with warm fires and a very cute boy…"

"Mom, please," Bura begged, blushing and looking around for the remote to turn on the TV and get some sort of distraction rolling.

Bulma slyly pushed the remote between the cushions. "Honey, I'm your mother," she said. "You can tell me anything and I won't judge you. If I were in your position I definitely would have kissed the cute boy."

Bura made a face, "_Mom._"

"I just want to know what's going on in your life because I care," Bulma said innocently.

"You want to know because you're bored," Bura sighed. "At least be honest."

"And you'll be bored one day, too, so what's the truth?"

Bura weighed her options. She could tell her mom now or wait for her to find out later, which was inevitable and certain much like the rotation of the earth. Bulma had somehow or another caught the scent of blood in the water regarding her relationship with Uub and there was no way to hide it now, but Bura still wanted to keep it for herself as long as she could. It wasn't the right time to tell all she knew or all she did—there was still so very little clarity.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bura said evenly, staring her mother down and trying to sound as noncommittal as possible.

Bulma outright groaned in frustration, "You're completely impossible."

That might have been true, but Bura was glad to keep her problems to herself if it meant not having to participate in speculation or fielding questions from her mom and grandma (or worse, her father) over the final days of winter break. She did hear from Uub eventually the night before she was due to head back to South Metro; he called, said he was sorry for not doing so earlier, and assured her he would see her the following week after she got back to the islands.

"I miss you," Bura told him on the phone, and he laughed warmly.

_"Already?"_

He didn't seem bothered at all by the distance or the time, but Bura was miserable over it. Being in West City was suddenly completely dreadful and she wanted to leave but at the same time, she did not want to go to South Metro, either. She didn't want to worry Uub about it but she still had not had any contact with Pan and she was now far too afraid to try. Some small part of her hoped she would get back to their apartment and just find Pan's room empty and then they would never, ever have to talk about anything that had happened at all until they were 45 and over it, but that was just wishful thinking.

Bura arrived in South Metro late on Thursday afternoon. She landed in the park near the apartment, dawdled in the coffee shop nearby, then steeled her resolve to get it all over with as quickly as possible. It would be like taking off a bandaid—she would just have to face Pan and accept the consequences of her decisions. There were no other options now that her choice had already been made and the quicker Bura just accepted it the easier it would be to bear the brunt of Pan's anger. She had already put it off too long.

Except, Pan wasn't angry. Bura found the door to the apartment already unlocked with Pan inside, and when she pushed it open some kind of sad break up music with heavy piano and a man's tenor voice drifted out. It made Bura pause. In all her mental playthroughs of how this first meeting with her oldest friend would go, she never once considered that Pan might be sad. In her mind Pan was only mad and Bura had psyched herself up to expect an atmosphere dripping with well-deserved wrath, but in reality there was nothing but heartbreak to greet her. She expected yelling and outbursts about betrayal and ruined friendship but got caterwauling singers and big, puffy red eyes instead.

"I'm so sorry, Bura," Pan said as soon as she saw her. "I meant to call you but it was all I could do to just finish the experiment they assigned me at work. I didn't know how to analyse the data they wanted and no one would help me and…"

Pan was sobbing between her words and Bura was completely astonished to hear them summing up to be an apology. Pan had nothing to be sorry for, especially not towards her of all people. Bura dropped her bag on the floor while Pan blew her nose.

"I bet he didn't even tell you guys when it happened," Pan said bitterly. "Uub broke up with me."

"He did?"

Bura heard her voice in her ears as if someone else were speaking the words while she desperately tried to piece together the situation. She joined Pan in their living room and turned down the terrible music.

"He did," Pan repeated. "It came out of nowhere. I mean, we had our fights but I thought we were working things out…"

"You fought?" Bura asked before she could stop herself. She had always known their relationship to be solid, or at least Pan had presented it that way to her.

"All the time," Pan moaned, reaching again for the tissues. Bura sat down and handed her the box. "But it was never about serious stuff. Like, he got mad when I told you he had allergies. How stupid is that?"

"Kind of silly," Bura agreed, bewildered.

"Silly does _not_ cover it," said Pan. "I should have seen it coming. He was never fair to me. It's honestly just like him to pretend to work something out then dump me out of the blue."

Bura's mind was reeling and she had no idea what to say that was not soul crushingly incriminating, so she said nothing. It didn't matter that she was silent, though; Pan had plenty to say.

"I think I overlooked too much," she said, and Bura tried her best to listen. "I just wanted things to work with him so badly. Did you know he's my first love?"

"No," Bura said quietly.

Pan's voice cracked when she mentioned love and whatever anger she had worked up at Uub collapsed neatly back down into weeping, leaving Bura distant and confused. She listened to Pan talk about her failed relationship for nearly an hour, collecting facts and trying to comprehend it, but she simply could not find a way to hurdle the reality that Uub hadn't given Pan any reason at all for his decision. It was worrisome news, and it was excellent news. But mostly it was horrifying because whether he meant to do so or not, Bura found herself in the most uncomfortable position of possessing the one piece of truth Pan lacked to make sense of her heartbreak. Bura decided not to share it, at least not yet, not until she had the chance to speak to Uub face to face again and hear how he explained things.

Uub messaged her while Pan was speaking and Bura read it quietly. It was innocuous; he only asked if she was back in South Metro yet. She considered that she should probably ignore him and focus on Pan—who was still intermittently crying—but when she thought of putting her phone down without answering him she felt her stomach drop and couldn't. Instead she typed her reply quickly:_ yes. call me in 30 minutes_. Then she made an excuse to leave the apartment by offering to go pick up takeout at a place Pan loved but didn't deliver. Pan got into the shower, Bura got ready to leave, and exactly 30 minutes later Uub called just as as the restaurant came into view. She let it ring, then answered.

"Why didn't you tell Pan?" she demanded immediately.

_"Hello to you, too, darling."_

Bura stopped in her tracks; she wanted to be upset with him, but just hearing him say darling made her almost forget exactly why. She shook it off and focused on the bright neon sign of the restaurant.

"Why didn't you tell Pan?" she repeated, this time with more deliberation placed on each syllable. "She has no idea what's going on."

_"Should I have called her up after I broke up with her to tell her?"_ he asked, and she knew it sounded stupid.

"Well someone has to do it," Bura snapped. "I just had to listen to her talk about you for over an hour and I think I had an out of body experience."

Uub was laughing as he replied, _"I don't think we owe anyone an explanation."_

"I think we at least owe her one," Bura said, biting her lip. "It felt terrible listening to her talk. She's so confused."

_"Bura, please believe me when I say that if she's confused then she's being willfully ignorant,"_ he said, all traces of mirth gone from his voice. _"I was pretty clear with her."_

"She said you were working it out," Bura countered. "And that you broke up with her out of nowhere."

She had no idea where the zeal rising in her chest was coming from, only that it felt eerily like fear on fire. Uub didn't say anything to confirm or deny or even defend himself and Bura stopped short of the restaurant, a single question branded on her tongue.

"When did you break up with Pan?"

As soon as the words were out she regretted them and mourned, wishing she could pull them backwards into her mouth and swallow them. Instead they crawled out into the air to hang both beautifully, earnestly sincere, and horribly, gruesomely exacting of the truth. His answer came quicker than she expected.

_"Wednesday night, after we went to bed."_

A beat of silenced passed, and Bura stopped walking. "Uub, did you…"

_"I didn't lie,"_ he said, but he said it too quickly to be comforting. _"I know it's not the best situation but I didn't mean for it to happen like that."_

"Did you break up with her on the phone, too?" Bura continued even though she already knew that he did.

_"Yes,"_ he admitted, and Bura swore. _"Bura, c'mon, do you really think I did it on purpose? Do you think I would intentionally do that?"_

Bura didn't know, not off the top of her head or in her heart. She wanted to believe him, to trust the person who knocked so softly on her door and showed no fear to broach a difficult topic, but it was so hard to overlook everything at once. He didn't lie but he certainly didn't tell the truth.

_"Bura? Are you there?"_

"I am," she said softly.

_"You don't believe me," _he said in defeat, _"but please listen. Everyone expected me to stay with Pan until I'm dead. The Sons think of me as family and they all just assumed…"_

"I expected you not to lie to me," Bura interrupted. "And I expected you not to turn me into a liar."

_"Can't you give me a little more time?"_ he croaked. _"I'll fix it, I swear."_

Again Bura wanted to believe him, wanted to trust him, but she wasn't sure he could fix it or if it even mattered. Once Pan knew what they did it was over either way; it didn't matter if they hadn't been cruel on purpose, and Bura wasn't sure they had. The result was the same.

_"Bura?"_

"I'm here," she said, and she began moving again. "I believe you."

_"Thank god,"_ he breathed, at Bura nearly smiled at the sheer relief in his voice.

"You better fix it, though," she said sternly.

_"I will. I promise."_


End file.
